
Presentations and discussion
Networking and connecting
Learning and workshops
Data Day is an annual event, hosted by Data You Can Use. In 2025, Data Day: The Wealth of Data will explore how data can be harnessed to expose and understand persistent racial disparities in wealth and prosperity. Through dynamic presentations, panels, and workshops, participants will examine how data-driven insights can inform equitable policies, practices, and systems change. Join researchers, practitioners, advocates, and community leaders as we unlock the power of data to drive more just and inclusive economic outcomes.

Wednesday, October 15th, 2025
Countdown to Data Day!
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Do you want to support Data Day?
Reasonable Accommodation
Data You Can Use is committed to providing the highest degree of accessibility when offering agency-sponsored events. Please notify our team at [email protected] with your disability-related accommodation requests by three weeks before the event. We will do our best to honor accommodation requests made after this date.


When: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Time: 8:30am – 4pm
Where: Discovery World – 500 N Harbor Dr, Milwaukee, WI 53202
Agenda:
8:30am Registration
9:00am Welcome
9:15am Keynote Address – Lamar Gardere, Executive Director of the Data Center, New Orleans
9:45am Keynote Q&A – Ian Bautista, Senior Director of Civic Engagement at The Greater Milwaukee Foundation
10:15am DYCU Presentation
10:45am Break & Data Walk Poster Gallery
11:15am Ignite Presentations
11:45am Data Dream Finalists
12:00pm Lunch
1:00pm Data Dream Winners Announced & Data Champion Award
1:30pm Afternoon Workshops:
A.) Local Data Panel: A Conversation with Ignite Presenters
B.) What’s YOUR impact? An introduction to Measuring the Results of Your Work
C.) Building & Using the Milwaukee Wealth Index
3:00pm Closing and Data You Can Booze Happy Hour
Keynote: On Wealth, and Love
New local data on wealth makes conditions in our communities – and their consequences – more clear than ever. It condenses, into a single calculation, the social and economic successes and injustices of the past, uneven opportunities in the present, and hopes for greater shared prosperity in the future. Local wealth data provides unprecedented clarity on the pathways to solutions and guidance on the scale needed to transform our cities and the lives of real people. Knowing the nature of our problems and the level of effort needed to address them, we have the power to apply the same creativity, determination, and skill that generated tremendous wealth in our nation to solving those very problems. The remaining question is: do we have the love necessary to create a nation where all people flourish?
Do we have enough love for our city, and love for our people, to do what is necessary to ensure greater prosperity for all?
Lamar Gardere, Executive Director – The Data Center
Lamar Gardere is the executive director of The Data Center – a data intermediary committed to providing objective and well researched data for informed decisionmaking. As executive director, he holds The Data Center’s vision of a more prosperous and inclusive region through the democratization of data. Lamar also serves as The Data Center’s chief advocate for technology designed to enable greater data sharing and collection and the effective use of advanced statistical methods in New Orleans.
Previously, as the City of New Orleans’ Chief Information Officer, he was nationally recognized for working to develop the City’s first data policy and the extensive data resources now available through the City’s Open Data portal. Earlier years were spent as a researcher with the Georgia Institute of Technology and with Intel Corporation’s research division developing solutions for the challenges associated with an increasingly mobile, connected, and computationally rich society.
A New Orleans native, Lamar earned a Master of Science in Computer Science degree in ubiquitous computing from Georgia Tech and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Xavier University of Louisiana.


Keynote Q&A Moderator
Ian B. Bautista, Senior Director of Civic Engagement, Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Ian B. Bautista serves as the Senior Director of Civic Engagement at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. He has worked his entire career in the nonprofit and public sectors on the local, regional and national levels. Bautista resides in Whitefish Bay with his wife (Elsa) and daughter (Iana). Ian serves as Chair of the Board of Data You Can Use.
Workshops
What’s YOUR Impact? An Introduction to Measuring the Results of Your Work
Kathleen (Katie) Pritchard, Former Data You Can Use President
Impact is about more than what you wish for. It’s about what’s different because of what you’ve done. Learn the basics of gathering the evidence you need to demonstrate that your work is effective. Walk away with an improved understanding of a theory of change and logic models, and tips of the trade for building a better survey.

Local Data Panel: A Conversation with Ignite Presenters
Amanda Beavin, Moderator, Data You Can Use Program Manager, Community Data & Research
This panel will re-convene the Ignite presenters to take a deeper dive into their projects, spanning the topics of environmental health, housing, public accountability, healthcare, and education. Following our theme of The Wealth of Data, panelists will be asked to reflect on the ways their data projects can be used to understand and address disparities in the Milwaukee community and beyond. Other topics of discussion will include common challenges faced when working with data, strategies and best practices for transforming data into action, and audience questions.
Building & Using the Milwaukee Wealth Index
Presented by,
Lamar Gardere: Executive Director, The Data Center
Haleigh Tomlin: Senior Data Analyst, The Data Center
Rohan Katti: Program Manager, Data Systems; Data You Can Use
Victor Amaya: Executive Director; Data You Can Use
Building off the keynote, this workshop will take participants deeper into the data and tools behind local wealth measurement. Highlighting the powerful insights about prosperity, opportunity, and equity, this session will walk participants through the technical foundations of creating a Milwaukee Wealth Index. Participants will hear how this partnership came to be, learn the methodology of the index, examine the report findings in detail, engage with a national wealth map, and discuss how this data can be used to inform and drive action.
Thank you to our Data Day Sponsors:
Community Champion Sponsor

Data Dream Sponsor

Data Dream Sponsor

Community Advocate Sponsors



Community Sustainer Sponsors


Community Partner Sponsors




Learn about past Data Days!
2024 - Measures and Movements: Using Data to Spark Change
Data Day 2024 marked the 10th Anniversary of Data Day! On October 23rd, we welcomed over 400 attendees. The theme was “Measures and Movements: Using Data to Spark Change.” Our keynote speaker was Jesse Van Tol, the President and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). After the keynote address, Greg Wesley, President and CEO of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, provided a response and moderated a Q & A session with Jesse. During the keynote, Jesse demostrated the online interactive data tool “Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Longitudial Dataset” which allows users to investigate the historical impacts of redlining and disinvestement through new geographical alignment across multiple decades of mortgage resporting over fourty years by census tract.
Data Dreams were awarded to two finalists at the event – Clean Wisconsin and Sherman Phoenix. Clean Wisconsin’s data dream is to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based evaluation of the local impact of green infrastructure in Milwaukee’s northwest side, incorporating an analysis of what environmental determinants of health are driving health inequities among the community and in the state of Wisconsin. Sherman Phoenix’s data dream is to employ precise measurement and data collection methods to effectively track the impact of our initiatives and validate the critical role we play in providing essential support to Black and brown small businesses seeking funding and assistance. They aim to identify the key indicators to substantiate their mission and facilitate the continuous improvement of their programs.
Moderated by Andrés Gonzalez, Vice President of Community Engagement and Chief Diversity Officer at Froedtert ThedaCare Health, Inc., the afternoon panel focused on the ways that local organizations used data to advance community health. The panelists represented organizations from sectors along the spectrum of social determinants, such as housing, education, healthcare, community-based development, and the built environment. The panel was made up of Antonio Butts, Executive Director of Walnut Way Conservation Corps, Anne Christiansen, Executive Director of Milwaukee Healthcare Partnership, Stephanie Maney-Hartlaub, PhD, Executive Director of City Year Milwaukee, and Teig Whaley-Smith, Executive Director of the Community Development Alliance. Highlights from the conversation include how each organization was utilizing data to advance their mission. For example, the Community Development Alliance compiles data on the individuals going through homebuyer counseling, grouped by neighborhood and political districts. They recently used this data as an advocacy tool with the Milwaukee Common Council when the city was considering cutting the home loan assistance budget considerably. Other examples of how panelists were utilizing data included measuring individual student progress, creating awareness and planning among community members, and guiding strategies for coalition-building.
2023 - Journey to Justice: Using Data for Systems Change in Milwaukee
Data Day 2023 took place on October 18th at the Italian Community Center, with 300 attendees. The theme was “Journey to Justice: Using Data for System chance in Milwaukee.” Our two keynote speakers were Cashauna Hill and Dr. Tonya Howard Calhoun. Cashauna Hill is the Executive Director of the Redress Movement, and previously served as the Executive Director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. The Redress Movement is committed to leading a multi-racial movement that empowers communities to take director action to redress racial segregation. Dr. Tonya Howard Calhoun is the Director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Office of Community Collaboration & Engagement. EDF is a global nonprofit tackling climate change through bold, game-changing solutions which put people at the center.
Data Dreams were awarded to two finalists at the event – Milwaukee Community Land Trust and Milwaukee Food Council. The Milwaukee Community Land Trust’s data dream is to compare the wealth created for families in three different scenarios: rental / fair market / community land trust. Using Milwaukee housing historical data to create a ten year comparison of the different scenarios, they hope to to inform potential homebuyers’ decision-making and the general public’s understanding of the land trust model. The Milwaukee Food Council’s data dream is to create a social network map of the pre-existing programs, policies, organizations, and businesses within the complex food system of Milwaukee to determine if they are meeting public need. Through facilitating dialogue among organizations doing overlapping work, they seek to mitigate the historical and systemic barriers that inhibit individuals from accessing nutritious, healthy food by fostering an organizations of shared resources and collaboration.