Article by Manije Kelkar: “A CEO of a mid-sized nonprofit recently shared her frustration: after nearly two years of trying to hire for data roles, her organisation had little to show for it. Candidates were either unaffordable, inexperienced, or simply unavailable.
It’s an increasingly familiar story…
Before asking how to solve the talent gap, it’s worth unpacking what we mean by “data talent”. Data talent is not a single role—it is a spectrum of capabilities required to design, manage, and use data effectively.
At one end are Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) professionals who define what data should be collected and how it aligns with programme design and decision-making. Then there are analysts who interpret this data—building dashboards, generating insights, and supporting reviews. Behind the scenes are those who build and maintain data systems: MIS platforms, databases, and pipelines. At more advanced stages, organisations may engage data scientists to explore deeper patterns and predictive insights.
Expecting a single hire to cover this entire spectrum is unrealistic. Yet many organisations implicitly do exactly this—hiring “a data person” and hoping it will solve all their data-related challenges. Across nonprofits at different stages of data maturity, a clear pattern emerges: the challenge is not just a shortage of talent, but how narrowly the problem is defined. It is often viewed as a hiring gap rather than an organisational one.
Even where organisations are able to hire, the impact of that hire is often limited in the absence of complementary investments. Becoming data-driven is less about a single role and more about building an enabling environment.
Here are five shifts organisations can make alongside hiring…(More)”.
