Neal Myrick

COVID-19 has affected every community across the world, and Tableau’s hometown of Seattle is no exception. Through a $2 million package of grants we’re dedicating to organizations across the greater Seattle area, we’re directly supporting the wellbeing of minority students and their families through the pandemic while investing in their educational and future career success.

As we start to see more data on the impacts across different geographies, we need to understand the particular challenges that rural communities face—and we need to look to the data to inform our understanding of who makes up these communities.

Decisions about the need for schools and health clinics are influenced by the Census. COVID-19 has shown how much investment in communities and health infrastructure matters, and how critical it is that people be represented accurately so their needs can be heard and met by the government. But the pandemic has also complicated the Census data collection effort.

Before COVID-19, the biggest challenge facing many communities across the U.S.—including Tableau’s home of Seattle—was homelessness. The number of people experiencing homelessness on a given night has risen for the past several years, due to a range of factors from housing unaffordability to poverty.

Tableau Foundation and Community Solutions have been working together since 2016 to measurably reduce—and ultimately end—homelessness in communities across the U.S. Through a new $2 million commitment from Tableau Foundation, we’re accelerating the use of data to drive toward an end to homelessness by improving coordination across services and support organizations.

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging leaders across sectors to confront a horrific crisis and adapt quickly to weather it. As a response, we increased the budget of our annual Community Grant program by 172% from last year, and condensed the assessment period from 12 weeks to three weeks to get the money out the door as quickly as possible.

The novel coronavirus is anything but “a great equalizer.” As the outbreak has progressed through the United States, black and brown communities are facing particularly extreme impacts.

In every case, a key to controlling and eventually eliminating the spread of these diseases comes down to two very simple ideas: Trace every possible contact with infected individuals, and keep information moving faster than the disease.

In just a few short months, COVID-19 has reshaped the world. As the novel coronavirus has spread, people have begun sheltering in place and practicing social distancing while numerous businesses have shuttered and the global economy has ground to a halt.