Mapping Ontario's Community Data Ecosystem
How does community knowledge become public influence?
Residents, grassroots groups, nonprofit organizations, researchers, funders and public institutions all produce knowledge that can improve policy, services and funding. The central accountability question is not only whether evidence exists. It is whether that evidence can travel, carry influence and change a decision.
IIBD is developing a province-wide understanding of these pathways through bounded decision traces. The first pilot focuses on community grant funding.
Four parts, applied one decision at a time.
- 01
Map the ecosystem
Identify who produces, funds, stores, interprets and uses community evidence.
- 02
Trace decisions
Follow evidence into funding, policy, planning and service-delivery decisions.
- 03
Identify accountability gaps
Show where responsibility becomes unclear or evidence becomes disconnected from action.
- 04
Build practical tools
Develop methods that make evidence use and decision pathways visible.
Who Gets Funded?
Tracing community evidence through Ontario grant decisions.
Funding is not simply an administrative transaction. It is a decision about which needs will be recognized, which organizations will be trusted and which forms of community knowledge will receive resources.
A competition may be open to many organizations on paper while remaining much easier for some to navigate. Legal status, paid staffing, cash flow, grant-writing experience, digital access, language, reporting systems and organizational history can shape whether an eligible group can realistically compete.
Who Gets Funded? examines the design of selected grant systems rather than judging individual reviewers or applications.
Central questionHow does community-generated evidence move through the rules, assessment practices and authority structures of selected Ontario grant programs — and where does it gain, lose or fail to carry influence?
- 01
Follow the decision
Map the pathway from funding priority to eligibility, assessment, approval, reporting and renewal.
- 02
Measure the burden
Examine the time, documentation, technology, cash-flow and compliance demands placed on applicants.
- 03
Trace what counts
Study which forms of evidence are requested, recognized and rewarded — and where community knowledge loses influence.
- 04
Build a practical standard
Develop and test a Community Funding Transparency Framework for institutions and community organizations.
Initial scope
The initial phase uses a deliberately varied sample rather than claiming to represent every Ontario funding system. Programs will be selected using published criteria, evidence availability and conflict screening. The final sample has not yet been confirmed.
Decision Trace
- 01Priority defined
- 02Evidence requested
- 03Eligibility appliedFriction point
- 04Judgment exercisedFriction point
- 05Authority confirmed
- 06Result communicated
- 07Conditions imposed
- 08System reviewed
Anticipated outputs
Grant Decision Trace Set
Six maps showing where evidence, rules, discretion and authority enter selected systems.
Administrative-Burden Matrix
A comparison of application, due-diligence, cash-flow and reporting demands.
Applicant Experience Brief
Where documented processes align with or diverge from organizational experience.
Community Funding Transparency Framework
A tested tool covering accessibility, eligibility clarity, proportionality, evidence fairness, explainability and learning.
Pilot Findings Paper
A citable account of methods, findings, limitations and practice implications.
Scale-up Decision
A transparent recommendation on whether and how to expand across Ontario.
Studying a system requires accountability from the institution doing the studying.
IIBD applies for and receives grants. That relationship creates knowledge and responsibility, as well as potential conflicts that must be managed openly.
The pilot will:
- Disclose relevant IIBD funding relationships.
- Exclude live programs to which IIBD is applying from scored analysis.
- Avoid using privileged information obtained through recipient relationships.
- Distinguish published evidence from participant accounts.
- Describe missing information as “not publicly documented,” not “does not exist.”
- Give named institutions a factual-check opportunity, not approval authority.
- Use independent methods review before public comparison.
- Publish methods, limitations, corrections and material changes.
Status: Active — Design and evidence-mapping phase
IIBD is currently refining the six-program pilot, reviewing publicly available grant materials, testing the Decision Trace protocol and establishing community, methods and funding partnerships. Primary interviews and comparative scoring have not begun.
Community participation
Shape questions, test the framework or participate in a later interview.
Institutional learning
Clarify process design, test the framework or examine improvements.
Funding and methods
Support independent analysis, participant compensation, accessibility, data work or methods review.