What is it?
The Colorado Equity Compass (CEC) is a collaborative group of organizations including Change Matrix, The Colorado Trust, Colorado Health Institute, and Consume & Create working to provide changemakers and communities with the stories, data, and resources they need to improve the lives of all Colorado residents.
The CEC website supports Colorado’s communities in addressing inequities through the following:
- Hosting the Equity Data Navigator (EDN) with data on the social determinants of health and health outcomes, allowing users to compare and understand quality-of-life factors for Coloradans across counties throughout the state. Drawing from Census data, the EDN includes indices in various areas, available at the County and census tract levels.
- Features a story bank featuring Colorado stories rooted in equity, justice, and antiracism; our work aims to improve the quality of life for Coloradans.
- Includes health equity resources with a library of tools, data sources, reports, and more to help communities advocate for change throughout Colorado. The newest content includes an Advocacy Module, which outlines ways in which individuals and organizations can use data storytelling to advocate and act to improve health equity.
What Change Matrix does
CM serves as the coordinator for CEC, engaging our partners in this work – Colorado Health Institute, Consume & Create, and our funder, The Colorado Trust. We lead the communications and promotion of CEC and support the ongoing evaluation activities. CM also leads trainings, presentations, and capacity building. Over the course of nine months, CM is leading the Data Storytelling Learning Collaborative, supporting six community-based organizations to build skills around data use and developing compelling stories, culminating in an advocacy project.
Why we love this work
CEC centers equity in this work, which is directly aligned with CM values. The CEC mission is to democratize data and offer tools and resources to support data storytelling to advocate for and drive meaningful change in Colorado communities. The CEC work is connected to CM’s mission to motivate and manage change, most directly through the Learning Collaboratives we have supported.
