pitch unfairly

Cheat Codes · Proposals and business cases

Florence Nightingale, 1858. Pitched unfairly, 2026.

The chart that cleaned up the army. Same story, same numbers. Rebuilt the way we'd pitch it today.

Template: Impact report and funding ask

  • 17,982 deaths charted
  • 8 to 1, disease to wounds
  • 1 rose diagram
Play the 2026 deck Read the real story Steal the structure
1858 Impact report and funding ask

Florence Nightingale

The chart that cleaned up the army.

Legend
Original craft
Unfair

The story→9 slides

It's a live deck. Press start, then scroll or use the arrow keys, or play it full screen.

Play the 2026 deck

Florence Nightingale's impact report and funding ask, slide by slide

Every slide opens the live deck right where it is.

  1. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 1: Disease beat our army. Drains won it back. 01Disease beat our army. Drains won it back.
  2. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 2: Disease killed eight of our soldiers for every one lost to wounds. 02Disease killed eight of our soldiers for every one lost to wounds.
  3. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 3: At January's rate, disease kills the whole army in a year. 03At January's rate, disease kills the whole army in a year.
  4. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 4: We stopped treating the soldiers and started treating the building. 04We stopped treating the soldiers and started treating the building.
  5. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 5: Next winter: a bigger army and a twentieth of the deaths. 05Next winter: a bigger army and a twentieth of the deaths.
  6. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 6: The blue is every death we could have prevented. 06The blue is every death we could have prevented.
  7. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 7: Three commissioners and 556 handcarts. The rest is arithmetic. 07Three commissioners and 556 handcarts. The rest is arithmetic.
  8. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 8: In peacetime, our barracks at home still lose 1,100 men a year too many. 08In peacetime, our barracks at home still lose 1,100 men a year too many.
  9. Florence Nightingale deck, slide 9: Fund four commissions, and let the numbers keep watch. 09Fund four commissions, and let the numbers keep watch.

Then · 1858

How it really went

Read the real storythe story, via Wikipedia; data from HistData (Pearson and Short, 2007)
  1. October 1854: Nightingale sails for Scutari with 38 nurses
  2. Her first winter there, disease kills far more soldiers than wounds
  3. January 1855: the worst month, 2,761 dead of disease
  4. March 1855: the Sanitary Commission flushes the sewers and opens the wards
  5. Within weeks, hospital mortality falls to a half, then a tenth
  6. Back home, she and William Farr turn the army's returns into the rose diagram
  7. 1858: Notes on Matters Affecting the Health of the British Army goes to the War Office
  8. The Royal Commission reports; four sub-commissions take on barracks, schooling, statistics and the medical department
  9. 1858: she becomes the first woman member of the Statistical Society of London

Now · 2026 · 9 slides

What we changed

  • The rose, rebuilt and playableAll 24 months redrawn from the real data. Switch causes off, drag through the months, or flip it to a bar chart and watch why she picked the rose.
  • A thousand soldiers, two wintersTwo grids of 1,000 men fill with the dead at each winter's rate: 712 per thousand, then 35.
  • The bill, and the arithmeticThree commissioners, 556 handcarts, 24 dead horses. Slide an army size and her two death rates do the rest.
  • An ask with a returnFour commissions, one hero, and a return in men: 1,100 a year who stop dying in barracks at home.

Steal the structure

Build your impact report and funding ask like Florence Nightingale did.

  1. 01 Cover The result and the ask in one line, with your strongest chart as the art.
  2. 02 The problem in numbers One total, split by cause, so the preventable share is impossible to miss.
  3. 03 The baseline Your worst measured period at poster size, so every later number has something to beat.
  4. 04 What we did The intervention on a dated timeline, and the first results as they landed.
  5. 05 Outcome against the baseline Same measure, same season, before and after, with the population size shown.
  6. 06 The one chart The single chart that proves it, interactive, with a plain view beside it for skeptics.
  7. 07 Cost and what it bought Itemize what you spent, then convert it into the outcome the funder cares about.
  8. 08 What remains undone The gap that is still open, in the same units as your results.
  9. 09 The ask What you want funded, the lead item first, and what it will change.

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