Best Practices: Collecting and reporting on demographic information

A monthly series to help you grow your expertise, use the platform to its utmost potential, and ultimately improve your programs.

This post was originally published in February 2024

Thanks to your feedback, this month’s best practices topic is highlighting how to best collect and report on demographic data. Soak in our recommendations on how to collect your desired information in an inclusive way, and learn how you can automatically capture an Organization’s demographic data in the platform using an integration with Candid.

Before we get started – do you learn better by watching presentations? Check out this on-demand webinar, Best Practices for Collecting Demographic Data Workshop, and choose to engage in a few exercises that will help you build an actionable plan to create or revise your own demographic surveys.

Collecting and reporting on data

Why should you be thoughtful about whether and how you collect demographic data?
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The best practices that we offer here apply a DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion lens to demographic data collection. The goal is to intentionally use language that will make all applicants feel seen and welcome, especially those who may have historically been unheard, erased, exploited or marginalized.
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Why? It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s also smart: if some people filling out your form don’t feel welcome, you risk losing worthy applicants. And, study after study establishes that improved diversity and inclusion leads to better outcomes for everyone—from increased innovation and competitiveness, to stronger ethics and team culture.

Guiding principles for collecting demographic data

Collecting demographic data is an essential, but also sometimes tricky, aspect of social change work. It’s a constantly evolving field, and while we at Submittable have given this a lot of thought, we aren’t “experts.” Making mistakes is part of the work, and we’re here to learn along with you.
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With that said, here are some guiding principles that we’ve identified that can help you to put your best foot forward.

When designing your survey:

1. Do your research: Reading this email is a good start! Especially when working with specific populations, it’s best to learn directly from them about their preferences.
2. Explain why you are collecting the data and how it will be used and protected: You’re asking participants to divulge personal information and they deserve to know why so that they can decide if they want to share it with you.
3. Ask only on a need-to-know basis: Do not collect data for the sake of collecting data. Only ask for data that is essential for you to meet your program objectives and/or requirements.
4. Avoid bias in response order: Alphabetical order is a good choice
5. Place survey toward the end: This is to help avoid survey fatigue.
6. Ask for feedback: You can invite people to share with you how the survey made them feel, whether they felt included, and whether they were able to identify themselves in ways that felt true to them. Remember, it’s okay to get it wrong—feedback is how you can learn and grow.

When crafting your survey questions:

1. Make responses optional: Avoid forcing someone to answer a question in order to apply. Reporting note: you may not receive 100% participation
2. Aim for self-description: Allow applicants to self-describe via a fill-in-the-blank vs. a predefined list. Reporting note: this could increase the data standardization burden for your team. As a next best option, you can use form branching to allow for an option to self-describe in addition to a predefined list.
3. Allow for multiple selection: You don’t want people to feel pigeon-holed if multiple things may be true for them. Reporting note: You may not have a 1:1 map of applicants to responses.

Follow the “whenever possible” rule
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Depending on your objectives and requirements, it will not always be possible to follow each of these principles all of the time, particularly when there may be adverse reporting consequences or requirements imposed by your funder. Be thoughtful, and follow these principles “whenever possible.” You can also push back where you can on any requirements in your way so that you can be more inclusive in the future.

Automatically collect demographic data from Candid

Interested in the demographic breakdown of an organization’s board of directors? There’s an integration for that! Submittable can provide you with the tools to collect, organize, and report on crucial demographic data with ease. Submittable leverages Demographics by Candid to provide a comprehensive way for your organization to:

• Reduce burden on grantees by automatically associating demographic data to grant applications (when applying on behalf of an organization)
• Keep your reports and organization profiles up to date with the latest updated information
• Provide an equitable funding experience to all applicants and key stakeholders across the term of your program

This integration gives you detailed insights to the ways that an organization’s board of directors identify within race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and more! To learn more about how to tap in to this data source, contact your Customer Success Manager, today!

Candid’s Demographic information is publicly available to funders, researchers, donors, and other stakeholders. You can update your own organization’s demographic information at any time– learn how here.

Sam Ellsworth

Sam is Submittable's Product Marketer focused on Foundations, Non-Profits, and organizations that distribute grants or awards. She is passionate about helping organizations of any size to measure their impact and scale their programs with the platform. When not at work you can catch her in the mountains of Montana with her golden retrievers.