The new year offers a valuable opportunity for organizations to refine how they manage information. Effective data governance is about more than just compliance—it’s about creating a reliable foundation that allows your organization to serve the public with greater precision and transparency.
If you are updating your strategic planning for the coming year, consider integrating these four essential policy types into your framework to ensure your data remains a secure and actionable asset.
1. Ethical Data Usage Framework
A dedicated ethical usage policy goes beyond legal requirements to define how your agency protects the dignity and privacy of those you serve. This policy sets clear standards for the organization to collect only what is truly necessary. An Ethical Data Usage policy also outlines protocols for maintaining confidentiality and ensures that your program evaluations are conducted with a “community-first” mindset, building long-term trust with donors, constituents, and the public.
Conduct a Data Audit: Map out exactly what information you collect from constituents. Ask: “Is this piece of data essential for our service or a specific statistical analysis, or are we collecting it just because we can?”
Establish a Transparency Statement: Draft a simple, plain-language summary of how you use community data and post it on your website. This is the first step in building a more transparency in a data-driven culture.
Why this is important: This ensures that vulnerable community members’ stories are told with dignity while protecting the sensitive personal information often required for social service eligibility.
2. Artificial Intelligence & Automation Guidelines
As AI tools become more common in the workplace, a specific AI policy provides a roadmap for responsible adoption. This policy outlines which tasks are appropriate for automation and establishes a “human-in-the-loop” requirement for any high-stakes decisions affecting the community.
Identify Your Tools: Publicly list the AI tools your team are already experimenting with and/or using in your day-to-day work. This list should include everything from generative AI programs, like ChatGPT or Gemini, to visual creators, such as Canva’s AI tools.
Create an “Appropriate Use” List: Clearly define which tasks can be automated (e.g., meeting summaries and note-taking) and which require human oversight. Note: there is no one-size-fits-all to human oversight. Some tasks may require minor human intervention while others may be too important to delegate to artificial intelligence.
Why this is important: This policy prevents automated “black box” algorithms from making biased determinations regarding public benefits or resource allocation without human oversight.
3. Cloud Security & Third-Party Vendor Standards
With the shift toward remote work and external software platforms, your data often lives outside your physical office. This policy establishes a rigorous vetting process for all external partners and sets minimum security requirements for any cloud-based tool. It ensures that sensitive data remains protected by encryption and strict access controls, providing a safety net for your organization’s digital assets.
Build a Vendor Registry: Create a simple spreadsheet listing every software and data system your organization uses, from your CRM to your email platform, and include which team(s) can access or administer the software on behalf of the organization.
Implement a Security Checklist: Create a standard vetting process for all new software and external partners. This checklist should outline needs from before signing a contract through software implementation. Always require a review of cloud-based system’s security credentials and data-handling practices to ensure they meet your agency’s minimum safety standards.
Why this is important: This policy protects organizations from the reputational and financial risks of a data breach, ensuring that donor records and grant-funded research remain secure in third-party databases.
4. Data Visualization & Reporting Standards
To ensure your data is actually used for evidence-based decision-making, it must be accessible and easy to interpret. This policy standardizes your approach to dashboard creation and reporting, ensuring that visualizations are accurate, inclusive, and easy for non-technical stakeholders to understand. By setting these standards, you ensure that every report your agency produces tells a clear, consistent story of your impact.
Define Your Core Metrics: Gather your leadership team and agree on the 3–5 key numbers that actually prove your impact (e.g., “number of households served” vs. “number of website clicks”). This metrics should be consistently reported to establish a clear prioritization.
Design a Standard Template: Create a basic “Impact Dashboard” layout that everyone in the organization uses. This prevents “report fatigue” by ensuring your board and stakeholders see the same clear format every time.
Why this is important: Clear reporting standards allow agencies to demonstrate program efficacy directly to board members and other stakeholders through transparent, easy-to-read impact metrics.
Strengthening Your Organizational Capacity
Drafting these policies is a major step toward a more resilient organization. Our team provides the technical assistance and data strategy expertise needed to move these ideas from a document into your daily operations. From performing specialized reporting to providing capacity building workshops that boost data literacy, we help you build a culture where information is used safely and effectively.
TA|CB Strategies 