2016 Reflections and Looking Forward
Over the past year since our transition to a stand-alone lowprofit limited liability company (L3C), we’ve had the opportunity to reflect on some changes at D3 and what we (and our community) have to look forward to from D3 in the year to come. While our mission has matured and remained absolutely fundamental to our culture, we’ve maintained partnerships with long-standing client-partners and also forged new ones.
A Few Highlights from 2016
- We focused on projects that expand our data warehouse with information and analysis that can be communicated, shared, and updated over time. We also identified our strategic project focus areas as Kids/Education, Neighborhoods, and Economy/Workforce with an overarching focus on Data Literacy/Accessibility.
- We provided various consulting and data services to several local foundations to tackle the countless pain points affecting early childhood and education in Detroit.
- We engaged in a variety of projects by providing data and insights to key decision makers to inform equitable economic and real estate development strategies in our region.
- We expanded our Data Literacy work and developed a data hub toolkit to aid burgeoning data hubs across the country build their capacity in their communities. Additionally, we leveraged previous data projects to begin showcasing the need in Detroit for a data alliance -a centralized place for data to be shared and accessed across organizations and sectors.
Hopeful Achievements for 2017
- Governance – have a responsible, mission-focused internal and external governance and accountability
- Mission Commitment – continue to live our mission and values and not compromise our mission for profits
- Staffing – continue to build a core team of mission-committed people with world class expertise in alignment with community needs and D3’s “lanes”
- Financial Sustainability – generate sustaining revenue at the level needed to maintain capacity so we can meet our mission without compromising