1. Michael P. Johnson
Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts
Boston
and
URBAN.Boston
Code for Boston – Boston Civic Expo, June 1, 2013
2. Community-based organizations, especially
those serving low-income communities, are
mission-rich but often data- and analytics-
poor
‘Big data’ and analytics movements are often
better-suited for large non-profits
Opportunities for data scientists, policy
analysts and decision scientists:
◦ What data do CBOs say they need to be successful?
◦ How can we help them acquire, analyze and share it?
◦ How can such data improve decision-making?
3. I am a professor in the Department of Public
Policy and Public Affairs at UMass Boston,
trained in operations research and committed
to decision modeling for housing, community
development and service delivery
URBAN.Boston is a local ‘node’ of a national
initiative, from MIT’s CoLab, to foster
research-community collaborations for
innovative policy solutions and social justice
4. What data do resource-constrained CBOs in
underserved communities need to achieve
their goals?
◦ Qualitative/subjective vs. quantitative/objective
◦ Shareable, searchable, accessible
◦ Responsive to local needs, values, resources
How can CBOs make informed decisions to
provide key services and improve
communities?
◦ Descriptive analytics
◦ Predictive analytics
◦ Prescriptive analytics
5. Boston Indicators Project,
http://www.bostonindicators.org/
Metro Boston Data Common,
http://metrobostondatacommon.org/
Boston Research Map project,
http://worldmap.harvard.edu/boston/
Mel King Institute for Community Building,
http://www.melkinginstitute.org/
Johnson (Ed) 2011, Community-Based Operations
Research: Decision Modeling for Local Impact and
Diverse Populations (Springer)
Boland, S. 2012. “Big Data for Little Nonprofits”,
Nonprofit Quarterly
6. Engage community members and local
organizations at URBAN.Boston-sponsored
events to learn about values, priorities, needs
◦ How do problems to be solved motivate data
necessary requirements?
◦ How can appropriate data yield information,
insights and decision opportunities?
Collaborate with professionals and students
to develop ‘information and decision aids’
◦ Policies, procedures, rules-of-thumb
◦ Databases and applications
7. Community-based organization(s) will
articulate data needs, and use any local
resources, existing or new, to meet them
Community-oriented solutions will be
affordable, flexible, technologically-
accessible, multi-platform, inter-disciplinary
CBOs will be empowered to advocate, lead,
serve and collaborate more effectively
Residents representing the diversity of Boston
will be central to this process
8. Michael:
◦ Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs,
University of Massachusetts Boston
◦ michael.johnson@umb.edu
◦ http://works.bepress.com/michael_johnson/
URBAN.Boston
◦ LinkedIn: URBAN.Boston
◦ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanBoston
◦ Mark Warren: mark.warren@umb.edu
