WRIT 400: Nonprofit White Paper

Key Statistical Resources

1) Tip: Google data and your topic to see what data sources come up. For example:

• data united states senior citizens
• data black men tech careers
• data Contra Costa County food insecurity

2) You can also read through news reports and other white papers to see what statistics they cite. (Just make sure they're as recent as possible.)

3) Data sources available online and through the library:

Data.census.gov: The US Census is the definitive source of demographic data of the United States. Browse or search by topic or geography.

Statistical Abstracts of the United States (paid database): Authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. Coverage: 1790 to present

Statistical Datasets (paid database): Visualizes data sets related to health, employment, population, income, and more.

Google Public Data Explorer: Visualizes data sets from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Census Bureau, the World Bank, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, and more.

Data.gov - "The home of the U.S. Government’s open data."

Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) - Statistics for San Francisco Bay Area cities and counties

Evaluating Data Sources

Make sure to look out for:

• How old is this data?
• What organization collected it? What is their focus/purpose?
• How accurate is this data? How was it collected? What is the sample size?
• Is the population represented by this data relevant to my population of interest? (Pay attention to geography, race, income, etc.)
• Does my community partner already collect and publish data? (Use it, and also find data they may not already have.)