Chart Selection
You can select the type of chart you would like: stacked bar, bar, line, bubble, pie and area charts. Next select the variables you would like to chart. There are various design options available to customize your chart.
Unit of Analysis Selection
On the bottom right of the chart, you will see a text box that is expandable and there are multiple options for what unit of analysis will populate the charts. You can select to see the data according to Grantees %, Grants count, Grant %, Fundings count, Funding amount,
Funding %, and Cross-tabs. The default chart value depends on the data that you selected, although you can always change the unit of analysis. For most variables: grantee count is charted. For cross-tab analysis, it shows cross-tab.
You can select multiple options in a chart, by selecting multiple options from this list and get some very cool visuals. We recommend only 2 to start. For example, perhaps you want to chart region and funding amount to see funding amounts per region, or Portfolios by Funding %.
Cross-tabs can be used when you want to explore trends the cross-section of trends within a categorical variable like gender for example. Perhaps you want to see if there is a difference in men, women and trans attending a campaign rally (yes, no). Cross-tab would show the number of men, women and trans that fall under the Yes and the No category.
Chart Settings and Customization
You can customize charts in a variety of ways when you press the Settings icon. The first screen on settings, allows you to format what you see on the chart axes. The default is that all descriptive information on x and y axis show. However you can choose to hide them with a switch of the toggle. You can also choose to hide the data labels and you will not see numbers appear in the charts and hide the legend at the bottom of the chart.
The second settings screen allows you to change the name/label of what appears on the x and y axis in the charts.
The third settings screen allows you to change the colour of the data points. In order to do so, start with the first colour square on the left and move consistently over from there if you have a multiple series chart.
Data Table
If you would like to see the data table, press the table icon underneath the chart and it will pop up for you to review.
Saving and Downloading Charts
You can save charts for later use by pressing the teal “Save” button on the bottom right. When you come back to a saved chart, and edit any of the settings, the button will change to Update, and your new settings will be saved (to the Chart list see point 6 below).
When you want to download charts to add them to a report, presentation, or share externally, press the Download button and a pop-up modal appears. Here you can give the chart a title, and you can select to see the title in the chart upon export. You have the option to save the chart in a variety of file formats, from png, jpg, svg, pdf, or csv.
You can then select to download in a variety of different aspect ratios to fit different presentation styles.
Finally, you can choose to make the font size and chart image scale larger or smaller by moving the slider right and left. Play around a bit and see what you like!
Chart List
Once you have saved charts, the first thing you will see when you press the Charts icon on the sidebar is your charts list.
Creating a chart using a CSV
Sometimes we want to create a specific chart with additional data that we have outside of IM. You can do that by preparing a simple csv with data for 1 chart that can be charted on two axes. Do this by preparing your csv data in the following way. If you want a basic chart to show frequency or percent for a particular category (to be visualized in IM like this)….
THEN Prepare a csv file like this:
To explain the steps in preparing this csv file see below.
In first column, first row put name of the x variable. In subsequent rows, write the name of the group that will appear on the axis as bars/line/etc
In the second column, first row, put the name of the unit you are charting (e.g., proportion of grantee funding, frequency of grants, amount of funding, etc). In the subsequent rows in the second column, put the numerical value that is associated with the x variable in the same row. Once you upload your csv data, you can explore all chart types easily as you would normally do by pressing the icon. Don’t forget to save your charts as normal after you have decided on the right visualization!
Different charts that you may find helpful to track grantmaking: Funding, Funding per portfolio, Funding per region, Funding over time, Funding by Type of Funding, Top outcomes, Top Outcomes, Issues, Strategies, Issues and Strategy by Region.