In this written comment submitted to the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature, Kathryn L.S. Pettit and Leah Hendey write about how their experiences from the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) could inform the discussion around Nebraska Unicameral Legislature Bill LB1214—Create a Pilot Program for Neighborhood Data Collaboratives. They describe how the pilot could help provide people with the neighborhood-level data needed to understand patterns and trends, identify priority issues, and inform community responses. The pilot could also facilitate surfacing residents' experiences to enhance quantitative data, thereby improving the quality of the analysis and contributing to more informed responses.

The authors also note that NNIP experience demonstrates that communities are most successful in advancing their goals when they invest in building data capacity at all levels. The pilot could build data capacity by providing two enabling resources to the collaboratives: access to data and to help with the data. The collaboratives could also contribute to supporting the development of individual skills and practices to effectively use data. Finally, they could augment collective skills and practices by supporting learning communities to cultivate exchange among data users and providers.

The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

For more information about NNIP, see https://nnip.neighborhoodindicators.org/.