Why numbers alone rarely tell the whole story

Listen to this story instead.

Imagine you’re handed two attendance reports from two community events. One event drew 128 people, and the other drew 12. Which one mattered more? 

You can’t tell from those numbers alone, and that’s exactly the point. 

Many people trying to solve complex problems have learned that the most meaningful outcomes aren’t always the easiest to count. Attendance numbers can tell us who showed up, but they don’t necessarily tell us what happened, what changed, or what became possible because they did. 

Susie Estrada, School Improvement Program and Special Education Parent Engagement Specialist at the Utah State Board of Education, remembers a series of family literacy nights across Utah. Some attracted more than 150 families, and others brought just a dozen. 

“When you look at the events where only 12 people showed up, it’s easy for people to think, ‘Oh, well, that one failed,'” she said.  

At one such smaller event, Susie described how attending families spent the evening in one-on-one conversations with educators and community partners. “Those families spent the majority of the time getting personalized attention, getting information that they otherwise wouldn’t, building their skills, building awareness, and getting what they needed,” Susie said. “That’s actually a major success, too.” 

Communities are increasingly (and often rightly) asked to measure their impact. Funders want outcomes. Leaders want evidence. Policymakers want to know what works. Those are important questions, but they can also tempt us to mistake what is easiest to count for what is most valuable. 

In Susie’s case, attendance numbers described how many people showed up, but they didn’t describe what became possible for those twelve people who were in the room.  

And that distinction matters far beyond family literacy nights. 

What Are We Really Measuring? 

Numbers are remarkably good at revealing patterns —they can help us understand whether things are changing and in which direction. 

But numbers rarely speak for themselves. They can tell us what happened, but not necessarily why it happened, what people experienced, or what those findings should mean for the decisions we make next. Those answers emerge only when data is paired with context. 

That’s why the same attendance report can lead two people to completely different conclusions. One person could see twelve attendees and conclude the event wasn’t worth repeating. Another could see twelve families who received personalized support, uncovered barriers that had gone unseen, and helped shape a stronger event the next time around.  

In this case, the number never changed. Only its interpretation did. 

Bonnie Owens, Deputy Director with Promise South Salt Lake (SSL), has spent years navigating that distinction. “This is where we get this difference between qualitative data and quantitative data,” they said. One of the clearest examples comes from Promise SSL itself. Bonnie pointed to one of the partnership’s most striking figures: an 85% drop in juvenile arrests during afterschool hours. “It’s just an overall really great statistic,” they said. “We love that one.” 

But even statistics that compelling don’t explain everything. 

“There may be quantitative data that says, ‘Hey, something is working,'” Bonnie explained. “But you can’t use that data to say, ‘Oh, this particular thing is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing.’ And part of the reason is that there can be 100 different things that impact a child’s success.” 

Bonnie’s point reflects an important reality. Young people’s lives are shaped by families, schools, neighborhoods, health, housing, relationships, opportunity, and countless other influences. No single metric can fully capture how those forces interact. 

For Bonnie, that’s where qualitative data becomes essential, as it helps provide the context that helps explain what the numbers alone cannot. 

Compared to What? 

Even when communities learn to look beyond the numbers themselves, another question remains: compared to what? 

Dakota Matherly, Director of the Office of Early Childhood at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services and Co-Chair of the Promise Partnership Council, helps oversee programs that serve children and families across the state of Utah. That statewide perspective has taught him that the same number can carry a very different meaning depending on the community. 

From Dakota’s perspective, scale is always relative, and what appears modest in one community may represent extraordinary reach in another. A program serving thirty families in a rural county, for example, may be reaching a far greater proportion of its community than one serving hundreds in an urban center. 

“The numbers might not appear big, but that doesn’t mean the impact isn’t,” said Dakota. “This is why I really like to look at percentages, because sometimes percentages can paint a different story.” 

He went on to explain that “a program serving thirty families in a rural county may be reaching a substantial share of the families it set out to serve. The same number in a larger metropolitan area could represent only a small fraction of the population. Without understanding the size and context of the community, comparing those efforts by raw numbers alone can lead to misleading conclusions.” 

Communities need good data—without it, it’s difficult to know what’s working or where to improve next. But good data has never been about collecting numbers for their own sake. It’s about asking better questions, interpreting evidence thoughtfully, and understanding the communities behind the statistics. 

Data doesn’t replace judgment. It asks more of it. 

Written by Danielle LeCourt, Partnership Communications and Narrative Director