Looking to users to guide Candid’s future 

Candid’s mission is to get people the information they need to do good. “Get” is the key word here—how we offer our data is nearly as important as what we offer. That is, the products and services through which we make that data accessible, meaningful, and useful.

Like many organizations, our priorities have historically been driven by funder feedback, internal timelines, and technical feasibility. But over time, we found that we were inadvertently sidelining users in the process.

After a few painful stumbles, it’s become clear that we had to make a significant change—center users as our primary guidepost from the very beginning, rather than as a nice-to-have at the end.

Becoming user-centered requires transparency and openness, listening carefully, letting go of our own preconceived notions, and being willing to pivot when something doesn’t work. I’ll share a few key moments that reshaped our own approach to product development, feedback, and partnerships in recent years. Each example reflects not only a lesson learned but a commitment to doing better by those we aim to serve.

Prioritize users, not deadlines 

This year, we launched Candid search, which brings together our flagship products, GuideStar and Foundation Directory. When updating the process to edit nonprofit profiles, we scaled back several design elements that were intended to guide users in order to meet our internal launch deadline. Upon release, users found it confusing. That resulted in a mad scramble to add back the features we had cut, creating far more work and stress than if we had included them in the first place. This was a tough way to learn a crucial lesson: focus on the user from the beginning to the end.

We learned that meeting self-imposed deadlines should never come at the expense of the user experience. We also recognized the importance of involving real users in the design, development, and testing of the product, so their needs and voice could be both understood and prioritized.

Going forward, we’ve clearly defined the user personas and use cases we’re aiming to satisfy and made user validation a requirement, even if that means delaying the launch.

Take funder feedback with a grain of salt 

Demographics via Candid (DvC) is an initiative to empower nonprofits to share their demographic data while reducing their administrative burden. Its success relies on both funder and nonprofit participation. In the early days, some funders insisted on including layers of privacy controls to protect nonprofits. Because the funders said “jump,” we jumped. It was only after we got far down the road that we discovered that nonprofits largely didn’t share those concerns. It turned out to be a misconception on the funders’ part.

Through this experience we learned we can’t substitute the word of funders (or anyone else for that matter) for the voice of actual users. While it can be a signal to investigate further, we learned to validate what we’re hearing with users before moving forward. It’s also important to consider the cost vs. the benefits. A privacy solution where a nonprofit could customize who could access their demographic data would have been nice, but nonprofits didn’t see this as a high priority, and it would have come at a significant cost. In this case, the investment far outweighed the benefit.

This experience has helped us to go straight to the source for accurate feedback, engage with users early and often, and conduct small experiments to test assumptions and recommendations.

Set realistic expectations and be transparent 

In 2019, Candid undertook the first revision of our taxonomy, the Philanthropy Classification System (PCS). Input was primarily limited to a few external research partners and Candid staff, resulting in relatively small changes. Over time, however, we received feedback that our taxonomy didn’t accurately or fully reflect some groups’ work. When we launched our 2022 taxonomy update, we decided to follow a much more open process. We put out a wide call for feedback and received hundreds of suggestions. Our team was overwhelmed with the breadth and depth of the suggestions, and it took us much longer than expected to review them and make thoughtful decisions—potentially undermining the community’s trust and confidence in Candid.

Here we learned not to set and share timelines before fully understanding the scope of a project. We also discovered that if you’re open and transparent with people about the challenges you’re facing, they will be gracious. Ultimately, it’s more important to get the updates right than to stick to a predetermined timeline.

We’re now better prepared to invite external feedback because we’re more realistic about the time it will take to thoughtfully consider it. We’ve also learned that when putting out a broad call for feedback, providing guidance on the type of feedback that would be helpful and feasible to implement is essential to appropriately set expectations.

Candid—intentional, better, together 

Becoming a more user-centered organization hasn’t been a straight line—and it’s far from finished. We’ve learned to pause, listen, and adjust when our instincts or timelines get ahead of our users. That shift has made our work stronger, our partnerships more grounded, and our direction clearer.

We’ll keep building—but we’ll do it with users at the center, not just in mind.