Attentions: What Happened Behind the Data?

Last class, we compared two similar organizations. One ranking is obviously much better than another one. We spent much time talking about that. One reason we mentioned most is the revenue and expense report for two organizations. The better one shows a slight decreasing trend of expenses and stable revenue status. The other one's revenue is hard to meet the increasing expenses? But I noticed that, there is an outlier of the former one in its revenue graph two years - it increases sharply (almost double the number of last year). I could not find the explanation for that extreme change. Do we need to put attentions on what happened behind the data?

In BBB and MN Standards, they all have some parts to explain some interesting details or changes. As a successful non-profit organization, nice data is good. Its or project's sustainability is more important for donors. We judge an organization is good or not mostly based on data and evidence (except reputation). Biased data or explanation will cause more questions in these processes.

Talking about effectiveness, what kind of situations or changes do we need to pay more attentions behind the data?