The field of impact accounting has a lot of …. acronyms (this isn’t a state secret). Additionally, many of the datasets contain technical terminology which may be confusing to outside stakeholders (and internal ones!)
A hugely valuable feature in this respect is the ability to annotate datasets with data definitions (collectively, often termed “data dictionaries”).
Unfortunately this feature isn’t that well-emphasised in Metabase, so it may take some digging around to find it (note: if it’s your data, kindly feel free to share definitions).
How To Find The Data Dictionary For A Dataset Of Interest
Instructions
1: Click into browse data
2: Click into ImpactDB (unless you’re an administrator, this is the only database you should be able to see).
3: Click on the learn about our data button above that.
4: You can now click on data reference (left column) to explore annotations for individual tables in the database. Or you can jump directly into them by navigating through the column to the right.
But wait, there’s more!
Once you’re at the table level, you can click on any of the updated fields in the left column to examine individual fields within that table.
For example, if you’re not clear on what “EBITDA” means, you can click on that field to call up a definition.
You can also find questions that reference that field beneath the definition table (the column on the right).
The Impact Database (ImpactDB) was founded in 2024 with the aim of curating and sharing data and datasets of interest to the impact investment and development finance communities.
