FAQs
Eligibility
EDDIT is a free, in-depth data analysis and storytelling training program for organizations working towards urban equitable development. EDDIT aims to help organizations fully leverage their data to better evaluate and communicate the impacts of their work. The EDDIT team will work closely with your organization to create a personalized curriculum designed to meet your data and narrative needs.
The deadline to apply for the EDDIT 2023 cohort was Thursday April 20, 2023. The EDDIT 2023 cohort will be announced soon!
No, EDDIT is offered at no-cost to selected organizations.
- EDDIT is a training program for organizations, including local government (e.g., a local planning department), non-profits (e.g., an affordable housing developer or a business improvement district), community organizations (e.g. a residents’ association), and private organizations.
- Organizations must operate in a U.S. or Canadian city with a population ranging from about 50,000 to 500,000.
- Organizations should have a specific equitable development project/program that they wish to use as the basis for the training. Ideally, this project/program has been active for three or more years and has robust data.
- Note that the EDDIT training is not open to individuals or students.
Having a specific equitable development project/program to use as the focus of the training is strongly preferred. However, if your organization does not have a specific project/program, you will not be necessarily disqualified. If this is your situation, please describe in your application the specific equitable development goals, approaches, or research questions that your organization would like to focus on in the training program.
The EDDIT program will begin in the summer of 2023, with most of the training scheduled for spring 2024. Organizations must have a commitment to participate in 20-30 hours of training. An overall timeline is provided below:
- Stage 1: Kick-off (Summer 2023): We will hold a virtual kick-off meeting with the EDDIT team and the cohort of selected organizations. In addition, we will schedule individual virtual meetings to plan the site visit and discuss your project/program.
- Stage 2: In-Person Site Visit (Summer/Fall 2023): Members of the EDDIT team will spend a few days visiting your site to learn more about your organization, your data, and the challenges of your project.
- Stage 3: Curriculum Design (Fall 2023/Winter 2024): The EDDIT team will design specialized workshops based on your data and narrative needs. There will be virtual check-ins every two months during this process.
- Stage 4: Staff Training (Winter/Spring 2024): Once the curriculum is designed, your staff will go through a 16-week training program with 20-30 hours of virtual lectures, workshops, modules, and office hours. Staff will analyze and communicate the story of your project by the end of the program.
- Stage 5: Final Symposium (Spring/Summer 2024): Your organization will be invited to attend a symposium in Toronto to present and celebrate your work along with the rest of the EDDIT cohort. Flights and accommodations will be expensed by EDDIT.
At this time, EDDIT is only open to organizations that operate in small or mid-sized cities, as defined by a population ranging from about 50,000 to 500,000. Cities with populations slightly over or under these thresholds may be eligible. However, cities with populations that far exceed these limits will not be considered. If this applies to you, we encourage you to keep an eye out for future rounds of EDDIT, as eligibility criteria may be expanded. Sign up for updates to stay in touch!
Yes! We welcome this type of project/program.
This is not a strict requirement, but it will be taken into consideration as part of the overall evaluation. This will help us identify projects/programs that have sufficient data to be analyzed as part of the training. For example, this could look like a workforce development program that has been running for the last 3 years, or a new BRT Line that was built 3 years ago.
Ideally, your organization will have at least some basic data associated with your project/program, given that this will be the focus of the training. Having some data as a starting point is recommended, but you do not need to propose a detailed data plan given that we will work closely with your organization to explore other datasets and organize/analyze your existing data resources. Data may include:
- Qualitative or quantitative data collected from your project/program
- Administrative data (e.g. individual health or tax records)
- Proprietary data (e.g. data purchased from a vendor)
- Geocoded data (e.g. addresses, phone numbers, zip codes)
- Open source data (e.g. census data)
Equitable development is defined as policies, programs, and/or infrastructure investments that provide opportunities for all by reducing wealth and health disparities, with an intentional focus on disinvested places and communities of color. Areas of equitable development include:
- Economic opportunity
- Housing affordability
- Transportation accessibility
- Food security
- Environmental justice
- Capacity building
- Culture and history
- Community wealth-building
- Active living
- See the Initiative page for more details
Yes! We encourage you to apply. Projects that integrate multiple areas of equitable development may have a competitive advantage.
Yes, you may select ‘Other’ in the application form. Please describe the nature of your equitable development project
Yes! Seasonal projects, such as a summer camp or a winter festival, are considered eligible. Projects must have been active for 3 or more seasons.
Selection Process
Applications will be reviewed by a panel of experts in equitable development from various sectors, including current and former mayors, professors, and think tank experts! The judges are Alison Goebel, Elsie Harper-Anderson, Kathryn Pettit, Libby Schaaf, Manuel Pastor, and Satya Rhodes-Conway. Full bios are available on the Eligibility page.
Applicants who make it to the final round will be invited to a virtual interview with the EDDIT team to be scheduled during the second week of May.
The evaluation criteria used by the judges and the EDDIT team will include:
- Alignment with equitable development (e.g., what areas of equitable development does your project involve?)
- Organizational interest in data analysis and storytelling (e.g., what aspects of your projects are you curious to explore through data?)
- Team capacity (e.g., can your team commit to EDDIT throughout the training process?)
- Availability of data (e.g., what type of data is available for your project? How much data and how extensive is it?)
Virtual interviews will be conducted with competitive applicants.
More Details about the EDDIT Training
We will work closely with your organization to create personalized modules designed to meet your data and narrative needs. The curriculum will include virtual lectures, workshops, and office hours tailored to your organization’s project/program, including both technical data analysis skills and more process-oriented case-making & storytelling skills.
Your team will build their skills in these areas, and your organization will gain insights on your specific equitable development project/program. By focusing together on one project, you will also develop transferable skills to implement organization-wide.
The training will be provided by:
- Karen Chapple, Professor and Director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
- Tiffany Manuel, President and CEO of TheCaseMade, a consulting group specialized in case-making and consensus building.
- EDDIT staff, postdocs, and graduate students from UC Berkeley and the University of Toronto, who specialize in urban issues and data science.
- Faculty experts from UC Berkeley and the University of Toronto, available to provide specialized training for specific areas of equitable development. For example, if your project/program concerns transit accessibility, we may bring in a faculty member specialized in this field to contribute to your particular curriculum.
The site visit is an important part of the program, as EDDIT is geared primarily towards organizations involved in place-based equitable development work. This site visit will allow our team to meet your organization, learn more about your project/program, and gain a better understanding of your community and data. The site visit will help us better tailor the narrative & storytelling component of the training to your specific context.
We are prepared to teach at all levels, from very basic to advanced. The training will be targeted to the needs of your organization. This may include training on Excel, Python, GIS, data organization, data visualization, narrative-building, and more.
We will enter into a data sharing agreement with each selected organization, which can be tailored to your organization’s needs. Data will be stored so as to ensure data privacy and confidentiality. If and as appropriate, we may share the data and results of your data analysis with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and/or post results publicly, but the extent of any public data sharing will be up to the discretion of each selected organization.
