Data For Justice: Interview with Erin Butler and Mia Henry

Viewpoints

Oct 5

Last week I had the chance to sit down with Erin Butler (they/she) to talk about their role at Freedom Lifted - which includes collecting data and analyzing evaluations to improve our live and virtual offerings.

I had the pleasure of first meeting Erin when they were a first-year student at Kalamazoo College. Later, they convinced me to hire them to work at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. (Even though our policy at the time was NOT to hire first-year students, Erin was more than ready for the job!)

Needless to say, they stayed at the center during all four years, and we remained close after graduation.

Erin currently works with Freedom Lifted to collect and analyze data from our live training surveys, the online course completion & progress reports, and feedback from client coordinators.

As a dedicated activist and organizer in (and originally from) Detroit, Erin applies a justice and equity lens to this work that makes data useful for our team and the organizations we work with.

Listen to our conversation in full right here (or read the transcript):

In this conversation, Erin and I talk about…

Why it’s important to find a BALANCE between tearing down broken systems & building up better solutions… using real & useful data
2 things Erin recommends to STRENGTHEN your organization’s data evaluations (or start fresh)
What our data analyst thinks about the future and possibility of REPURPOSING data for justice & equity work

You can watch our 37-minute conversation right here (or read the transcript).

Enjoy!