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This episode of Data for the People! shares highlights from the Data Foundation’s 2026 Data Summit, focusing on philanthropy’s role in supporting a stronger shared data ecosystem.

Data Foundation President and CEO Nick Hart moderates a conversation with Daniella Lowenberg of the Data Funders Collaborative and Rachel Snyderman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Lowenberg describes the Collaborative’s priorities, including modernizing state and local data infrastructure, improving effective data use (privacy, self-sovereignty, and quality), and data readiness for AI and evaluation.

Snyderman explains the Peterson Foundation’s focus on long-term fiscal sustainability and how bipartisan attention to improper payments, fraud, waste, and abuse can be reframed as a data issue that also improves benefit access.

The panel discusses where philanthropy can test ideas and convene cross-sector partners, while noting limits in replacing federal system investments or making federal policy, and highlights opportunities to accelerate progress through responsible use of new technology and clearer communication to policymakers.

If you enjoyed this conversation from our 2026 Data Summit, then you won’t want to miss our next big event: govDATAx, on September 15th at George Washington University. 

govDATAx brings together government leaders, data practitioners, policymakers, technologists, and researchers to advance the use of data for more effective, transparent, and accountable government. 

Learn more and register. 

Interested in learning more about Evi, the Evidence Act Hub AI assistant co-developed by the Data Foundation and Data Foundation Senior Fellow Ted Kaouk? A beta version is now available to test.  

govDATAx is the Data Foundation's flagship conference bringing together government leaders, data practitioners, policymakers, technologists, and researchers to advance the use of data for more effective, transparent, and accountable government.

This year's govDATAx will be on Sept. 15 at George Washington University. 

Register now.

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

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In the latest episode of Data for the People!, Data Foundation Senior Fellow Taka Ariga discusses the prospect of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance government efforts to prevent fraud and other types of improper payments in public benefit programs.

Ariga was the first Chief Data Scientist at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) where he also directed GAO’s Innovation Lab. He later served as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. He is now a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation and the founder of Sol Imagination, an AI advisory company.

Amanda Cash, the Senior Director of the Data Foundation’s Center for Data Policy, joins the episode as a co-host.

Learn more about the Data Foundation/Deloitte report discussed on the episode, Navigating Transition and Change: 2025 Survey of Federal Chief Data Officers. 

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

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This episode of Data for the People! explores a problem with climate and environmental data that burdens public agencies and the private sector: Currently, federal and state regulators have a host of different reporting requirements for climate and environmental data, such as data on greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, the data get reported in multiple ways to multiple regulatory entities, which hampers the public's ability to use the data while making it hard to monitor trends and evaluate the effectiveness of policies and programs. Private organizations also pay a price in terms of time and money to report similar information in different ways to comply with a patchwork of state and federal regulations. 

A recent paper by XBRL.US proposes that the public and private sectors adopt a structured standardized data format to simplify reporting and improve government's ability to measure trends across jurisdictions and data sets. 

The episode features three guests: 

• Liv Watson, a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative and a co-founder of the Digital Global Single Market Data Alliance
• Catherine Atkin, a co-chair of the Law x Climate project at Stanford Codex as well as a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative and a co-founder of the Digital Global Single Market Data Alliance
• Michelle Savage, Vice President of Communications for XBRL.US

They discuss XBRL.US’s proposal to adopt structured, standardized, machine-readable reporting via a semantic data model to improve interoperability, support investors and policymakers, enhance AI use through better context, and reduce a growing patchwork of regulations.

We're dropping this episode during the week of DC Climate Week (April 20-24, 2026) when we are co-hosting a full-day event on April 21 about climate and environmental data. Learn more about the event's programming and speakers here.

The Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative makes climate and environmental data work better for decision-makers across sectors. Our vision is a federated and interoperable data ecosystem where decision-makers have the data needed to drive markets, mitigation, conservation, finance and compliance—one where public agencies provide foundational data and private actors are motivated to contribute. Learn more about the Climate Data Collaborative at www.ClimateDataCollaborative.org. 

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

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On the latest episode of Data for the People!, Brett Loper discusses policy options for using data tools to prevent improper payments in federal benefit programs. The options appear in a new report produced by the Data Foundation and our Fiscal Intelligence Initiative, with support from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. 

Loper is currently the Executive Vice President for Policy at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation after serving in a number of senior roles in the White House and Congress, including as Deputy Chief of Staff to then-House Speaker John Boehner. 

Read a short blog summary of the episode.

Learn more about the Data Foundation's 2026 Advocacy and Policy Agenda, including a priority on evidence-based efficiency that demonstrates an immediate return on investment from the federal evidence infrastructure. 

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

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On the latest episode of Data for the People!, Claire McKay Bowen discusses the role federal statistics play in our daily lives, strategies for communicating the value of government data, and her vision for the future of data sharing and data privacy. 

Bowen is a data privacy expert who is currently a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, an adjunct professor at Stonehill College, and a board member with the Association of Public Data Users (APDU). Last year, she co-authored a series of blogs for APDU about the manifold ways federal statistics inform routine decisions for Americans, how federal data is like the “forgotten egg” used to bake a cake, and what educators can do to teach K-12 students the origins and importance of U.S. federal data. 

Bowen also discusses a recent article she wrote for the Journal of Economic Perspectives titled "Government Data of the People, by the People, for the People: Navigating Citizen and Privacy Concerns." 

The Data Foundation is currently reviewing submissions for the People’s Data 100, an initiative to recognize federal datasets providing the greatest value to Americans. The conversation with Bowen is part of our broader effort throughout 2026 to spotlight the strategic data infrastructure that powers daily life in the U.S., from protecting public health to enabling scientific discovery to safeguarding taxpayer-funded benefit programs.  

In the spirit of the initiative, learn more about the AirNow system that supports the Air Quality index provided by BreezoMeter on the iPhone's weather app. AirNow is a partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Park Service, NASA, the Centers for Disease Control, and tribal, state, and local air quality agencies.

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

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The latest episode of Data for the People! features David Dutwin, executive director and senior vice president of AmeriSpeak, a panel-based research platform from NORC at the University of Chicago. Dutwin joins the show to discuss Americans’ trust in federal statistics, science, institutions, and one another.

Learn more about the American Statistical Association's The Nation's Data at Risk: 2025 Report, which includes analyses of AmeriSpeak survey panel data on Americans' perceptions and use of federal statistics. 

Learn more about the People's Data 100 initiative and nominate a federal dataset providing great value to daily life in the United States before the February 28, 2026 deadline. 

In the spirit of the People's Data 100 initiative, here are links where listeners can learn more about two national datasets Dutwin references in the interview: 

• The General Social Survey (GSS), which Dutwin calls "a mirror into the soul of Americans."  This federally funded survey has been tracking American attitudes, values, and social trends since 1972. 
• The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a collaboration between state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that uses health-related telephone surveys to collect state data about U.S. residents regarding their health-related risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and use of preventive services. In the interview, Dutwin gives the example of how Americans might see a statistic on TV about the rate of asthma among adults in a given state, which would likely come from the BRFSS. 

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

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In the inaugural episode of Data for the People!, J.B. Wogan (host) and Nick Hart (President and CEO of the Data Foundation) discuss the Data Foundation's mission to promote open data and evidence-informed policymaking. They introduce Bill Hoagland, Senior Vice President at the Bipartisan Policy Center, who talks about the federal government's use of data and evidence for decision-making and strategies to rebuild public trust in government and scientific institutions. Hoagland reflects on his experiences with the Congressional Budget Office, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the Senate Budget Committee, highlighting the evolving data infrastructure and the importance of objective, high-quality information in public policy. The episode also discusses key national data sets and federal initiatives like the Evidence Act aimed at improving the data ecosystem.

[IMPORTANT TIMESTAMP: The interview with Bill Hoagland took place on January 21, 2026 while Congress continued to deliberate over a spending deal to fund most of the federal government through the end of Fiscal Year 2026.]

Learn more about the People's Data 100 and nominate a federal dataset that provides great value to the American people: www.PeoplesData100.org. 

00:00 Introduction to the Data for the People! Podcast

00:36 What is the Data Foundation?

01:44 Why is the Data Foundation Launching a Podcast?

03:58 Introducing Bill Hoagland

11:45 Bill Hoagland's Career Journey

19:15 The Importance of Data in Public Policy

25:00 Rebuilding Trust in Government and Science

34:10 The People's Data 100 Initiative

36:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation

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Every day, millions of Americans rely on federal data—often without realizing it. From checking the weather forecast to planning retirement, from tracking disease outbreaks to measuring economic growth, government datasets power decisions that shape our daily lives and drive billions in economic activity.

Welcome to Data for the People!, a new podcast from the Data Foundation that shines a light on this essential but often overlooked infrastructure. Hosted by J.B. Wogan, each episode features conversations with leaders from the public and private sectors about the national datasets that belong to the American people and the policy changes in Washington that could enhance—or limit—their use.

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition

The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus

Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation