Data Visualization & Communication Resource
Updated January 2024
This resource was created with support from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) grant no. AM21FMPPCA1010 awarded to the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) in 2021 and involving partnerships with Alaska Farmers Market Association, Colorado Farmers Market Association, Illinois Farmers Market Association, Minnesota Farmers Market Association, and Vermont Farmers Market Association.
Farmers Market Coalition | Data Visualization & Communication Resource
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Determine What Story to Tell.
Choose Supporting Data Points.
Choose a Tool.
(1) Framework: How to Use this Resource
This document is meant to help farmers market advocates tell the story of markets in their communities. To get started, consider the following:
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Determine What Story to Tell.
Are you celebrating the economic contribution of farmers markets? Asking for funding to support a specific project or program? What is the reason you’re sharing this information?
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Choose Supporting Data Points. Consider:
(a) Data that’s already collected through market operations. Markets could collect data through vendor applications, surveys, or reimbursement forms. And statewide associations might collect information on membership renewal forms. FMC has a suggested list of metrics, which includes a “top 7” list: total market sales, total SNAP sales, total visitors, total volunteer hours contributed, number (or percent) of vendors who represent BIPOC-owned businesses, number of farm vendors, and acres cultivated by farmers.
(b) Secondary data that exists in or about your community. For example, you might use Census data on household income; nonprofit organizations’ data on food-insecure households; or USDA Census of Agriculture data on your state’s farming industry.
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Choose a Tool.
The rest of this document presents a list of our favorite tools for data visualization and communication. Markets might use one or a combination of these tools, depending on budget and capacity to interact with them.
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What it’s for
Why we love it
Pricing and plans (where applicable)
(2) Choosing Tools…
…for data visualization and communication. This section presents a list of some of our favorite tools for building and sharing data visualizations. For each, we include:
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Social Media Visuals �-Document Templates �-Infographics � | Most often used for creating visually appealing graphic designs & quotes. But the focus Canva places on design is what makes it stand out from the crowd. With a fantastic library of features, fonts and icons – it’s easy to present your research findings in an engaging format. There may not be as many creative graphs or tables. But what Canva lacks in data presentation, it more than makes up for with the sheer beauty of its design elements. We recommend using Canva to easily create eye-catching top line overviews that may even make your designers jealous. | Some templates and “premium” design tools are only included in the paid (Pro) version. However, all registered nonprofits can access this for free! Look for the “What will you be using Canva for” prompt, or find it under your account settings, to set up nonprofit access. Plans and pricing here. | |
-Design Elements | Free, easy-to-use tool. Generate a completely new color palette, or bring colors you’d like to use, and get suggestions to match them. | Compare free and pro versions here. |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Design Elements | -Download icons in multiple formats for free, and in any color you choose. -More limited selection of images than other sites. | -Free | |
-Data Visualization �-Mapping �-Social Media Visuals | -Very simple, can copy/paste or upload data from a spreadsheet | -Nonprofit pricing but doesn’t specify cost -A “free account limits you to 10 creations, and 10 custom image uploads (as well as restrictions on how your graphs can be viewed). But, you’ll still get access to 30 templates and a range of graphs, each of which are simple to build” -Pro account $19/month |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Design Templates �-Infographics �-Videos | -Video creation tools are unique and not found in many other products | -Free more limited version, and full nonprofit version ($60/year). Details here. | |
-Design Elements | -Huge selection of both icons and images for almost anything you can think of! | -Free account has some limitations. For about $3/month, you can change icon colors, use them without attribution, and more. Photo pricing slightly more. Plans/Pricing here. | |
-Photographs | -Huge selection of beautiful photographs. Great for reports, social media posts, etc. -Be sure to credit the artists if you use any of their work! | -Many free images, and many behind a paywall. -See pro pricing here. |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Design Templates �-Infographics �-Videos | -Video creation tools are unique and not found in many other products | -Free more limited version, and full nonprofit version ($60/year). Details here. | |
-Design Elements | -Huge selection of both icons and images for almost anything you can think of! | -Free account has some limitations. For about $3/month, you can change icon colors, use them without attribution, and more. Photo pricing slightly more. Plans/Pricing here. | |
-Photographs | -Huge selection of beautiful photographs. Great for reports, social media posts, etc. -Be sure to credit the artists if you use any of their work! | -Many free images, and many behind a paywall. -See pro pricing here. |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Infographics �-Data Visualization | -Easy-to-use templates for infographics, reports, data visualization, and presentations -Can import data from Excel | -Features on the free version are fairly limited. Paid version is, at minimum, $10/month. -Compare features and subscription prices here | |
-Document Templates �-Design Templates | -Create design templates, and edit them in just about any program you have (Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe, Google Suite, etc.) | -Free plan is available, but has very limited options to choose from. (Search “Free” to filter for the free templates) -Paid plan is $12/month |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Mapping | -Free tool that allows you to create custom-colored maps. Choose from states, counties, or congressional districts. -Export your map to use in any document. Save the map settings to recreate it again later. -Good tutorial page that walks you through the process. -This is useful if the existing geographic settings are what you want to use, but limited in that you can only color in predefined areas. | -Free | |
-Mapping | -Create custom maps and share them via URL or embedding on your website -Upload your own data for fast map creation | -Free |
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(3) Additional Tools
The tools in this section, while powerful, require significant back-end build outs and upkeep. They are best suited for those with working knowledge of good data management practices, and possibly some coding and data science expertise. For these reasons, it is unlikely that small organizations with limited capacity will take advantage of them. These tools are most often used by organizations with clearly established IT/data science departments, multiple teams (and types of users), and established systems (like well-maintained databases) for data management.
�Still, it’s worthwhile to present some differences among them.
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Mapping | -Free tool that allows you to create custom-colored maps. Choose from states, counties, or congressional districts. -Export your map to use in any document. Save the map settings to recreate it again later. -Good tutorial page that walks you through the process. -This is useful if the existing geographic settings are what you want to use, but limited in that you can only color in predefined areas. | -Free | |
-Mapping | -Create custom maps and share them via URL or embedding on your website -Upload your own data for fast map creation | -Free |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Live Dashboards �-Data Visualization � | -As with other Google Suite products, this one integrates with other Google products and allows for collaboration among users. It’s easy to build dashboards using data from Google Sheets, for example. -There is a whole suite of Google Analytics tools that allow users to track web traffic and report on key performance indicators. | -Free | |
-Live Dashboards �-Data Visualization | -Powerful tool for building dashboards and customizing the look and feel of them. | -Base plan is included with a Microsoft Office 365 ES subscription; otherwise, plans start at $10 per user per month |
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Tool Name | What it’s for | Why we love it (and other things to know) | Pricing & Plans |
-Live Dashboards �-Data Visualization | -Powerful tool for building dashboards and customizing the look and feel of them. �-Dashboards, charts, analysis of simple or complex data sets �-Extensive videos, tutorials, and online community of users who help each other with technical questions �-Many embedded data sources -Embed your creations onto your own website, or share the links publicly. �-Word of caution: requires working knowledge of good data management practices; there is a learning curve to using this software. | -The “Public” version is free but has some limitations. �-Tableau Desktop may be available to nonprofits inexpensively via TechSoup. �-Creator licenses (for managing data and building dashboards): $75 per user per month �-”Viewer” licenses are also available for $15 per user per month – allows users to access live dashboards |
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(4) Market Management Software
Data collection, storage, and sharing is foundational to good storytelling. Whether you’re telling the story of one market or all the markets in your state, having consistent metrics to draw from is a good practice. This section explores some of the market management software available today, and presents some of their features. It is not meant to be comprehensive; rather, we present this information to demonstrate the ways that market operations software can help individual markets manage daily operations while simultaneously building a reserve of data to tell their individual stories. If you have questions about specific features, reach out to these companies or to other organizations that have used their products.
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Product | Vendor Management | Vendor Payments to Market | Vendor Communication | Product Sales | Hosted Subdomain or Web Pages | |||
� | Applications | Mapping | For vendor fees, payments, rentals, etc. | SMS | Aggregate vendor products; create online stores. | Public- facing Pages | Password- protected Pages | |
x | x | x | x | x | | | | |
x | x | x | x | � | � | x | � | |
x | x | x | x | x | x | � | � | |
x | x | x. | x | x | x | x | x | |
Market Management Software Features
As of fall 2023. These are provided to give practitioners an overview of products on the market today.
Please check directly with these companies for the most up-to-date information.
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Product | Cost |
$150/month | |
$16 per vendor per market year. Discounts available for organizations operating more than one market. For markets with less than 7 or fewer occurrences annually, price drops to $7 per vendor per year. | |
Standard (less than 100 event days per event series): $15 per booth (one-time fee) Year-round (more than 100 event days per event series): $30 per booth (one-time fee) | |
$1400 per location. Unlimited number of vendors. Pricing is based on markets with 35-40 or more vendors. Other packages available for smaller markets, or umbrella organizations operating multiple markets. |
Market Management Software Costs
As of fall 2023. These are provided to give practitioners an overview of products on the market today.
Please check directly with these companies for the most up-to-date information.
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(5) Examples from the Field
This section provides some examples using real farmers market data from the field. We use the tools mentioned in this document to show the ways you might apply your own data to visuals or presentations for various audiences.
Supporting Data Points
Pulled from the 2022 report:
This resource was created using:
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The Story
We want to share with our social media followers: Glenwood Sunday Market’s shoppers have a big impact on the local food system and area businesses!
Example A: Social Media Post
Build it in Canva
Canva was an easy option for this, since there are templates available for social media posts. The images are the right size for the platform, and you can even add multiple pages – great for multi-page Instagram posts, for example. Nonprofits can get free/deeply discounted Canva premium memberships, which provide access to many of the “pro” features.
Use Other Tools to Support
We wanted certain visual elements that weren’t available in Canva. And we also wanted to make sure the color scheme was in line with the market’s branding. So we used:
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Choosing a Tool
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Screenshot of ColorPick Eyedropper
Screenshot of Coolors
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Supporting Data Points
This resource was created using:
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The Story
We’re making an appeal to a local funder to help us build a permanent market structure.
Example B: Presentation to Potential Funders
The market manager collected weekly data in an Excel spreadsheet which included:
Weekly data entries show that during peak season, the number of customers dips each time it rains. We want to graph visitor counts, grouped by weather on market day. We’ll use a line graph and a scatter plot.
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Choosing a Tool
Flourish has nice templates for slide decks, along with embedded data visualization tools.
The final product is visible in the images below, or on Flourish.
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