Insights Archives

Minnesota Compass is updating its public safety key measures to better reflect the community safety issues that matter most to Minnesotans’ quality of life. In this article, researcher Allison Liuzzi takes a deeper look at two new measures – adult feelings of safety and crime rates – to show how objective, official crime statistics align with Minnesotans’ feelings of safety in their communities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool for how we gather, interpret, and use data. For Minnesota Compass users—whether you are involved in grant writing, strategic planning, community organizing, or advocacy—integrating AI presents both opportunities and challenges. In Minnesota Compass’s latest Insights article, Justin Hollis provides a guide to understanding common AI tools and how to use AI when conducting data research.

Minnesota Compass looked at Minnesota voter turnout data from the 2000s and came up with 9 voter trends to watch for the coming 2024 presidential election.

In part three of our data disaggregation series, Research Associate Anne Li shares what she has learned about Latino and Hispanic Minnesotans. "Experiences, strengths, challenges, and needs vary by community, which is why disaggregating populations beyond census-level race groups is so important," she writes.

For the first time in over two decades, Minnesota will receive more accurate racial and ethnic population data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Recent updates to federal data collection guidelines will significantly improve our understanding of communities across Minnesota.

How did leaders come to their positions? It’s one of the most common questions Minnesota Compass receives about data in our Who Leads in MN? section. So we’ve been collecting information to learn more about pathways into leadership. Our findings point to some noticeable differences in how leaders came into their positions across Minnesota’s business, government, and nonprofit sectors.

In part one of a four-part series on LGBTQ+ Minnesotans, Minnesota Compass looked into what current demographic tools can, and can’t, tell us about LGBTQ+ Minnesotans and their households. We also give some background on why accurate data are so hard to come by, and how that may change.

In part four of our four-part series on LGBTQ+ Minnesotans, we look at children and youth who self-identify as LGBTQ+ in the Minnesota Student Survey, which is administered every three years and surveyed nearly 100,000 8th, 9th, and 11th graders in 2022.

In part two of our four-part series on LGBTQ+ Minnesotans, we look at same-sex couples as self-identified in the American Community Survey.

In part three of our four-part series on LGBTQ+ Minnesotans, we look at LGBTQ+ adults as self-identified in the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey.