QSIDE Institute

What QSIDE Institute does

QSIDE Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation founded in 2019 and headquartered in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The organization's stated purpose is to make data that legally and ethically should be public—but is often intentionally obscured or obstructed—clear, usable, and understandable for community advocates and researchers. QSIDE operates two research labs: the DSPACE Lab (Data Science, Police Accountability, and Community Engagement), established in 2021, which applies spatial statistics, network analysis, and natural language processing to policing and judicial data; and the Pharmacy Refusals Lab, which studies pharmacy refusal patterns and healthcare-equity implications. The institute also runs the Data4Justice Accelerator, a five-week online intensive that teaches data-science fundamentals to activists and advocates, and convenes the Datathon4Justice and Data4Justice Conference events.

The organization is led by co-founder Chad Topaz, with DSPACE Lab co-directed by Ariana Mendible (Seattle University) and Claire Kelling (Carleton College), alongside senior researcher Alex Wiedemann (Hamline University) and student researchers affiliated with Carleton College and the University of Minnesota. Research output is disseminated through peer-reviewed publications (e.g., in Statistics and Public Policy), open-access datasets, interactive visualizations, the Data4Justice Curriculum, and the Unlocking Justice book. Strategic priorities span criminal and legal system justice, education equity, environmental justice, health equity, and arts and media representation, with current named initiatives including the CA Racial Justice Act Research-to-Action Pipeline and a Death-Penalty Abolition Advocacy Project.

QSIDE's business model is donation-based, supported through a Donorbox fundraising page and channeled into research labs, accelerator programs, and community partnerships. Services are offered free of charge to community partners, with no commercial pricing. The institute relies on a distributed model in which academic faculty and students contribute research labor in conjunction with a six-person core team, and revenue is not publicly disclosed. There are no institutional investors, parent companies, or acquisition activity; the organization operates independently as a public charity.

Name

QSIDE Institute

Legal name

The QSIDE Institute

Website

https://qsideinstitute.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

QSIDE Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research organization that applies data science to social justice, operating research labs, accelerator programs, and community partnerships to make obscured public data accessible to advocates and academics.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Social Justice Research

NAICS

Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (541720), Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (54172), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)

akta.pro primary industry

Scientific Data Management & Data Platforms (SDMS/Data Lakehouse for R&D) (HLAGAJAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Biostatistics, Statistical Computing & Clinical Programming (SAS/R/Pipelines) (HLACAOAO), Bias, Fairness & Non-Discrimination Testing (HDAAAMAC)

Keywords

• Social justice research
• Data science analytics
• Police accountability research
• Nonprofit research services
• Criminal justice data

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Donations and Charitable Contributions: As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, QSIDE operates primarily through charitable donations. The organization accepts donations via Donorbox platform.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

QSIDE Institute applies data science and quantitative research methods to social justice questions, with emphasis on police accountability, criminal justice, and health equity. It operates research labs (DSPACE Lab and Pharmacy Refusals Lab), provides data tools, visualizations, and curated datasets, and runs the Data4Justice Accelerator training program for advocates.

Product overview

QSIDE Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that operates as a research-to-action ecosystem rather than a traditional product company. Their offerings include two research labs (DSPACE Lab focused on police accountability and Pharmacy Refusals Lab), the Data4Justice Accelerator (a 5-week training program for advocates), published research and the Unlocking Justice book, curated datasets, data tools and visualizations, community events (Datathon4Justice), and the Data4Justice Curriculum. These components work together to provide a complete pipeline from research generation to practical application for social justice causes including criminal justice, education equity, environmental justice, health equity, and arts/media representation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• DSPACE Lab: Data Science, Police Accountability, and Community Engagement research lab - partners with communities to work towards data-informed police accountability.
• Data4Justice Accelerator Program
• Data4Justice Conference
• Datathon4Justice

Products and services

• DSPACE Lab Data Science, Police Accountability, and Community Engagement research group that partners with communities to answer challenging questions about patterns in policing through data-driven research.
• Pharmacy Refusals Lab Research laboratory focused on studying pharmacy refusal patterns and their implications for healthcare equity.
• Data4Justice Accelerator Program 5-week professional development program designed for activists and advocates to learn technical fundamentals required for data-driven justice research.
• Data4Justice Curriculum Curriculum designed to teach data skills for social justice applications, making technical training accessible to advocates.
• Data Tools and Visualizations Tools, datasets, and interactive visualizations that make data accessible and understandable for justice advocates.
• QSIDE Datasets Curated datasets made publicly accessible that support social justice research and advocacy efforts.

Quantifiable outcome

• NYC judges with law enforcement backgrounds set cash bail 32% higher on average
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and secondary.

• Carleton CollegecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDr. Claire Kelling serves as Assistant Professor of Statistics at Carleton College. Carleton College students including Mia Wang participate as student researchers in the DSPACE Lab research activities.
• Seattle UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDr. Ariana Mendible serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Seattle University and co-directs QSIDE's DSPACE Research Lab.
• Hamline UniversitysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerAlex Wiedemann serves as Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computational Data Science at Hamline University and serves as Senior Researcher in DSPACE Lab.
• University of MinnesotasecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerWill Asinger is a PhD student in Biostatistics & Health Data Science at the University of Minnesota and serves as an active member of DSPACE Lab.
• Reinvestigation WorkgroupcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMinnesota-based volunteer investigative team that investigates cases of police violence after official investigations, helps request government data, advocates for data-driven policy changes, and serves as a Community Partner in DSPACE Lab.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Invisible Institute: Chicago-based nonprofit that combines investigative journalism, data analysis, and community partnerships to examine police misconduct and criminal justice. Highly comparable to QSIDE's research-to-action model focused on police accountability data.
• MuckRock: Nonprofit newsroom and civic-tech platform specializing in FOIA requests, public records aggregation, and data-driven accountability journalism. Closely comparable to QSIDE's core competency of unlocking obscured public data for community use.
• Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG): Applies rigorous statistical and computational methods to human rights and criminal justice data, including policing and violence patterns. HRDAG is the closest conceptual peer to QSIDE's DSPACE Lab — both are nonprofit data-science-for-accountability organizations producing methodologically distinctive research.

Broad incumbents

• ProPublica: Investigative journalism nonprofit known for data-driven accountability reporting, including criminal justice. Larger and broader than QSIDE, but operates a similar model of producing high-impact analytical work in the public interest.
• Vera Institute of Justice: Long-established nonprofit research and policy organization working on criminal justice reform, including bail reform research that overlaps with QSIDE's judicial-discretion work. Operates at materially larger scale than QSIDE and covers a broader portfolio of programs.
• The Marshall Project: Nonprofit investigative journalism outlet covering criminal justice. Overlaps with QSIDE's research dissemination function and target audience of reform-minded policymakers and advocates.
• Brennan Center for Justice: NYU-affiliated law and policy institute producing data-driven criminal justice research and advocacy. Comparable to QSIDE in producing evidence-based reform recommendations, though operates as a much larger policy/legal organization.
• ACLU: Major civil liberties advocacy organization that commissions and uses data-driven research on policing, bail, and criminal justice reform. Comparable to QSIDE as both a customer and partner for the type of research QSIDE produces.

Emerging players

• Data & Society: Research institute studying the social implications of data-centric technologies, including algorithmic fairness and policing. Comparable to QSIDE on the AI/fairness and data-governance dimensions of its work, though focused on broader technology policy.
• Stanford Computational Policy Lab: Academic-affiliated research group applying computational and statistical methods to public policy questions. Shares QSIDE's data-science-for-public-interest orientation, though hosted within a university rather than an independent nonprofit.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@qsideinstitute1995
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/qsideinstitute

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about QSIDE Institute