Small local news organizations are increasingly scaling back their budgets for professional development—that is, if they pay for journalists to travel to conferences at all. To work on filling the gap, Northwest News Nerds runs data journalism conferences open to women and non-binary journalists in the Northwest. We wanted something aimed squarely at beat reporters in small and medium-sized newsrooms to show that data wasn’t just for the big kids with big budgets. We also saw a need for more spaces for women, especially women of color, to speak candidly to each other about the challenges they face in newsrooms.