Rockefeller Archive Center Roundtable: Unlocking the Data in Philanthropic Records

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Discussion

Abstract

2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the Rockefeller Archive Center, a center for the collection of third-sector organizational records and the study of the global impacts of United States-based philanthropy. Traditional paper-based archives contain both structured and unstructured data trapped within narrative hard-copy documents. Social scientists trying to work in these archives typically find the process of extracting data from the records to be frustratingly difficult, if not impossible. Modern born-digital records are much more searchable and sortable, but even the data they contain may be blocked from easy access and interpretation because of proprietary system configuration and lack of metadata elements. This roundtable discussion will provide a basic understanding of the nature of philanthropic records and the types of narrative and quantitative information they contain, and then discuss and demonstrate two important projects the Rockefeller Archive Center has undertaken recently to “unlock” data: one, building a data set and knowledge graph drawn from narrative records of the Rockefeller Foundation, and another to develop an open-source tool for enabling the easy extraction of records and data from a proprietary grants management system. All participants are from the Rockefeller Archive Center.

References

PARTICIPANTS:

Moderator: Jack Meyers, President

Hillel Arnold, Associate Director of Archives & Chief Digital Strategies Officer

Bob Clark, Director of Archives

Barb Shubinski, Director of Research + Engagement

Rachel Wimpee, Associate Director of Research + Engagement

Sub Unit

• Other Third Sector related topics

Discussants

• Rachel Wimpee, Rockefeller Archive Center

• Barbara Shubinski, Rockefeller Archive Center

• Robert Clark, Rockefeller Archive Center

• Hillel Arnold, Rockefeller Archive Center

Moderator

• Jack Meyers, Rockefeller Archive Center