Putting local data to work

Nonprofits, local governments, and philanthropic organizations need to access and interpret data for decisionmaking. Local leaders can use data to pinpoint and address long-standing disparities and structural inequities so that everyone can have fair and just opportunities to lead healthy and productive lives. 

To support local communities, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute are partnering on a series of local grant programs.

Launched in 2022, the most recent program is Using Local Data to Address Structural Racism. The Foundation awarded $1.5 million in grants to 38 local nonprofit organizations that are using data to improve community conditions that have been shaped by structural racism, through projects focused on housing, transportation, environmental conditions, community safety and policing, and other areas.

Three past programs awarded $3.7 million in grants to 35 organizations across the United States:

• 500 Cities Data Challenge (2018) 
• Visualizing and Powering Healthy Lives (2019) 
• Data for COVID-19 Response and Recovery (2020)

With all four grant programs, the selected grantees and their community partners use data to better understand local issues and design innovative cross-sector solutions that promote healthy and equitable communities. The goals of these four programs are to: 

• empower organizations across the country to use data on health outcomes, life expectancy, and community conditions to illuminate and address geographic and racial disparities;
• encourage communities to leverage data to engage with local community members and policymakers to generate informed conversations that lead to action; and 
• elevate strategies that other communities can replicate by sharing each grantee’s data practices and solutions. 

MEET THE GRANTEES

Get to know the grantees and their funded projects and stay tuned for updates on the status of their important work.