Better decisions start with better understanding. In place-based work, that understanding has to be shared, trusted and grounded in the realities that only communities know best.
In our webinar on 31st March with Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Community, Hands Across Canberra and Connected Beginnings Mildura, I shared that we have been working on an important new initiative for building that understanding in community.
I’m so excited to share more about the Community Data Workforce Training Modules – the new training program we’ve developed in partnership with Partnerships for Local Action & Community Empowerment (PLACE).
The training was originally developed for our partner, Humans of Purpose Academy (HoPA), supporting women to build economic security by training in community data skills. After completing the training, the HoPA graduates come into Seer Data for paid work experience and then go onto secondments to PLACE Australia and other organisations to support the pathway to full time employment. We will share more on this pathway soon.
The training program will be made freely available by PLACE in June.
The training is a comprehensive course for anyone working in local communities to use data and evidence for community-led decision making. It’s based on our 8 years of experience working with more than 90 communities around Australia.
The training also looks beyond systems and tools to what really sustains change: learning culture, leadership, shared measurement, storytelling and local authority.
Here’s an outline of the course and modules.
| Course | Module | Short Description |
|---|---|---|
| Foundations | Privacy | Why privacy matters and how to protect personal information |
| Data Governance | Learn how to build strong, responsible data practices for data governance | |
| First Nations Data Sovereignty | Advice and guidance on the right to control, maintain, protect, develop and use data as it relates to communities | |
| Building Community Insight Through Data and Stories | Data Discovery & Mapping | Identify Open data, understand how it’s useful for context and understanding, how to access it and interpret it |
| Framework selection & key indicators | Learn about frameworks and selecting an appropriate one for community, to build shared language and understanding | |
| Data Literacy & Interpretation | Understand, interpret, and use data with community context | |
| Understanding and Using Data Together | Deeper understanding of Context | Establish a backbone team to initiate change and surface local needs, strengths & inequities |
| Data Ecosystem mapping and custodian engagement | Building relationships and formal processes for accessing private data and local service provider data | |
| Evidence Development | Building an evidence base for long-term strategy, decision-making and funding | |
| Shared Measurement | Setting up your approach to measurement, evaluation and learning | Strategic planning with data, co-designing and collaborating for a shared agenda and incorporating community voice as evidence |
| Data Infrastructure | Shared measurement with community at the centre | |
| Learning Culture | Embedding reflection and feedback and strengthening shared learning | |
| Leading with Data | Community led evaluation data storytelling | Incorporate community voice and data storytelling in evaluation |
| Capability & Leadership | Growing data culture, leadership and community skills (investing in local leadership) | |
| Systems Thinking & Advocacy | Using data to advocate for systemic change | |
| Community-led Decision Making | Learning Culture & Community Authority | Learning must be owned locally to sustain change. |
| Shared Decision-making & Influence | Go deep on key issues and share impact to influence policy | |
| Sustainability & Impact | Ensuring sustainable data use for long-term learning and growth |
The training also looks beyond systems and tools to what really sustains change: learning culture, leadership, shared measurement, storytelling and local authority.
What excites me most is when people closest to the work can confidently interpret data, connect it to community context, and use it to tell a credible story of change. Place based work strengthens. Collaboration improves and accountability becomes clearer. Communities are better placed to influence policy, attract support and shape decisions that affect their futures.
That is why our partnership with PLACE Austraila is so important. PLACE exists to support place-based change by creating and sustaining the conditions for place-based initiatives to thrive. Their work is grounded in community leadership, systemic reform, and the practical infrastructure needed to help local initiatives grow and endure. They also recognise that top-down, one-size-fits-all approaches have too often failed communities, and that those closest to the challenge must be central to the solution. That alignment with Seer Data’s experience has made our collaboration deeply valuable.
PLACE has brought a clear commitment to community-led change to the development of these modules. Their vision has helped ensure the training program stays anchored in real-world need, not abstract theory, and reflects the kind of respectful, practical capability-building that place-based work requires. We are proud to be building this alongside a partner strengthening the field.
For us, this training is part of a bigger picture. It is about helping create a stronger community data workforce: one that can steward data responsibly, surface what is working, and turn community data and insight into action that strengthens lives and communities.
If this sounds relevant to you or your network, registrations are now open for those who would like to receive the training once it launches. Register to be among the first to receive access to the Community Data Workforce Training Modules.
This is important work, and I’m genuinely excited about what it can unlock – not only for individual contributors in community organisations, but for the communities and collaborations they support every day.
Kristi Mansfield, Founder & CEO.
Interested in meeting with the Seer Data team to explore ways to collect and use data to tell your organisation’s impact story?
