Data source: yesvirginia.org

Data is crucial to making public policy and budget decisions. But getting good, solid, up-to-date data is not always easy and is often time consuming.

Over the next couple weeks, I'll be sharing data sources which can be used to inform public policy, budget, and practice (programming) decisions.

yesvirginia.org is the home of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership created in 1995 by the General Assembly. It was established to help expand the Commonwealth's economy. More important to this topic, though, is the wealth of data points on the site.

You can search community profiles by city or county, region, MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), or by the entire state. In addition, you can choose how you get the data. Users are able to download reports in PDF, quick reports shown on the website with the data and no explanatory narrative, and the data in Excel. The website version allows you to sort by data type. Even more important than the data, however, is a document providing all the sources. This is a goldmine!

Have a data source you'd like to share? Email me, susie.cambria@gmail.com.