Playbook: The BD4D Standard

The Better Deal for Data (BD4D) is a lightweight data governance standard for the social sector. It offers a practical alternative to the norm of collecting extensive data on individuals and organizations and often using that data against their interests. In adopting the BD4D, and publicly declaring that they will uphold its seven Commitments, organizations will demonstrate that their data practices are trustworthy.

At the core of the BD4D is its Declaration and seven Commitments. These are plain language statements about an organization’s use of data. The Commitments are supported with explanatory text that details when the Commitments apply and don’t apply, and what an organization needs to do to comply with each. The Declaration, Commitments, and explanatory text make up the BD4D Standard.

Trust is key to the Better Deal for Data. The BD4D is not formulaic legal language, although adopting organizations are expected to be legally bound to the commitments they are making. BD4D is not a technical standard, with extensive specifications on what is and is not permitted in data handling. It is a trust standard, defined by a set of principles that the great majority of nonprofit leaders would find reasonable and consistent with their nonprofit mission.

We believe that the concept of “no surprises” is essential to trust: that the individuals and communities served by an organization should never be surprised by its actions when it comes to data. Thus, a BD4D Adopter should provide information about its data handling in a spirit of honest transparency. Its community should find that the organization’s use of their data is clearly consistent with its social mission. Organizations looking for a loophole, or to do the bare minimum on data responsibility, are not good candidates for BD4D adoption.

We encourage organizations to see the BD4D Commitments as a floor, a set of minimum requirements that could and should be exceeded, and never as a ceiling that limits their commitment to ethical data practices. Organizations in many fields and jurisdictions will have more stringent practices or requirements placed on their data activities, and we see complying with such as being wholly consistent with the BD4D.

The last two years of our user research and outreach efforts have focused on nonprofits. This version 1.0 of the BD4D Standard has not been particularly designed with government agencies or for-profit businesses in mind, but we certainly would not discourage them from adopting these principles. If version 1.0 is successful with nonprofits, we hope to expand its scope in future versions.

We offer the BD4D Standard version 1.0 to the social sector in a spirit of co-creation. We hope it fills a major gap in data governance norms for nonprofits, helping establish practical and reasonable data use policies for the field. As additional organizations adopt BD4D, we expect to get more feedback on what could be improved to make it better fit for purpose.