Does your nonprofit track vital data -- but lack the time and resources to make sense of it? Don't worry! TechSoup Canada is here to help make your data work for you. Join us to learn how to create a reasonable and manageable data strategy, and how to foster a culture of data-informed decision making across your entire organization. In this webinar, you will learn how to: -harness the potential of business intelligence and Big Data -create and implement an integrated data strategy -overcome institutional resistance and foster a culture of data-informed decision making -use dashboards to gain insight into a variety of data sources

1. Finding Meaning
in the Numbers

2. Data do not, of themselves, change the
world. They make change possible – by
identifying needs, supporting advocacy,
and gauging progress.
- UNICEF, data.unicef.org

3. Benefits of measuring your data
Improve your
work
Make data-informed
decisions
Multiply Impact
Understand your
community’s
demographics, identify
high need areas
Accountability
Demonstrate your impact
to members, donors,
customers, board and
prospects
Better
forecasts
Predict and analyze
impacts of
programming and
fundraising
Know what’s
effective
Understand what is
working and what
isn’t working
impact

4. 1. Denial
Support: High
Ideas: Share success
stories, offer
training and provide
overview of data in
your org
2. Fear
Support: High
Ideas: Help interpret
findings, provide
encouragement
3. Confusion
Support: High
Ideas: Be available to
answer questions,
create reports
together
4. Delight
Support: Moderate
Ideas: Empower,
encourage and share
results
5. Data-informed
Support: Low
Ideas: Encourage, share
results and celebrate
My program is
an art, not a
science … it
can’t be
measured!
What if my
strategy/
program
doesn’t show
success?
I know I should
be measuring
our program,
but I’m not sure
how?
Hey, check out
these cool
metrics!
What does
the data
say?
5 Stages of Data/Measurement Acceptance

5. Business Intelligence vs
Big Data
Answering and Questioning

6. Business Intelligence (BI)
Sergei Akulich
Unsplash.com

7. Business Intelligence (BI)
Sergei Akulich
Unsplash.com
• Answers to the questions you’re already asking

8. Business Intelligence (BI)
Sergei Akulich
Unsplash.com
• Answers to the questions you’re already asking
• Who are the people we serve?
• Which months are the most active?
• Which programs bring in the most revenue?

9. Business Intelligence (BI)
Sergei Akulich
Unsplash.com
• Answers to the questions you’re already asking
• Who are the people we serve?
• Which months are the most active?
• Which programs bring in the most revenue?
• Descriptive
• Describes what is or what was

10. Business Intelligence (BI)
• Answers to the questions you’re already asking
• Who are the people we serve?
• Which months are the most active?
• Which programs bring in the most revenue?
• Descriptive
• Describes what is or what was
• Fishing in the lake
Sergei Akulich
Unsplash.com

11. Business Intelligence (BI)
Sample questions
• What are the demographics of the people we serve?
• How much income do specific initiatives generate?
• How many clients does each referral source generate?
• How do fundraising numbers this week compare to last week,
month, year?
• How do our email click through rates correlate to website
engagement?

12. Big Data

13. Big Data
• Fishing in the ocean
• Velocity, volume, variety of
formats[, veracity]

14. Big Data
• Fishing in the ocean
• Velocity, volume, variety of
formats[, veracity]
• Trends, spikes, lows,
patterns

15. Big Data
• Fishing in the ocean
• Velocity, volume, variety of
formats[, veracity]
• Trends, spikes, lows,
patterns
• What are the questions we
should be asking?

16. Big Data
• Fishing in the ocean
• Velocity, volume, variety of
formats[, veracity]
• Trends, spikes, lows,
patterns
• What are the questions we
should be asking?
“Big Data, ideally, allows us
to do predictive marketing,
which is the holy grail of data
analysis.”
http://getmespark.com/wp-
content/uploads/EvidenceBasedDecisionMaking.pdf

17. Integrated Data Strategy

18. Learning from our peers
Examples of nonprofits doing data right

19. You can’t manage
what you can’t
measure.
- Furniture Bank
techsoupcanada.ca/community/blog/how-furniture-bank-used-
innovative-technology-to-increase-social-impact

20. New regulation would impact major source of
revenue: journal subscriptions
Needed to re-evaluate traditional business plan
https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2016/february/member-surveys-and-beyond

21. How can we:
• Expand revenue
streams?
• Engage nonmembers?
• Build a more inclusive
brand?
• Strengthen the plant
science community?
“We knew our opportunity
was in the size of the
community surrounding us.
We have a world of people
interacting with us but we
weren’t calling them
members.”
Susan Cato, director of digital strategy and
member services
https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2016/february/member-surveys-and-beyond

22. • 19 separate data sources,
10 years worth of data
• Scrub!
• Identified 40,000
individuals with 2+
interactions
Redefine customer base
• What are their needs?
• How can we evolve
membership model?
• What tools and products
would they find useful?
https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2016/february/member-surveys-and-beyond

23. Where should we focus our outreach efforts? By looking at our registration data, we see
that Word of Mouth and Google for Nonprofits are our highest referral sources.

24. However, if we look at our gross admin fees by referral source, we see that Word of
Mouth and IT Consultants/Resellers referrals give us the highest return on investment.
But … how does this connect to our mission?

25. Your Data Journey
Brainstorming /
Practice Session

26. Define your
question
Choose
metrics
Collect
data
Review & share
data
Use data
Tweak, learn,
improve &
repeat
The Data Journey

27. 1. Define your question
What area would you like to explore?
What is your action question?
Recruiting members Efficiency of a process
A specific programAnnual campaign
Email list building
Social media outreach
Which segment is more engaged, express or implied consent?

28. 1. Define your question
Pro-tip: Appoint data champions around strategic goals

29. 2. Choose Metrics
What metrics should you measure? A few guiding questions:
What data
could you be
tracking? What decisions do you
want to be able to make
based on the data?
What does
success
look like?
What data
are you
already
tracking?

30. 2. Choose Metrics
Pro-tip: Plan for different data scenarios

31. 3. Assess & Collect Data
What data are you currently collecting? If you need to data that you
don’t have, how are you going to collect it?
One-off
• Surveys
• User testing
Ongoing
• Registration/
Donation forms
• Website visits
or Offline
• Event surveys
• Focus groups
Online
• Web forms
• Email interactions
or

32. 3. Assess & Collect Data
Pro-tip: Collect it clean

33. 4. Review and Share Data
Pull data Analyze Record data &
insights
Share
Website?
Email?
Database?

34. 5. Use Data
MomsRising holds a weekly staff meeting called “Metrics Monday.”
Each program and campaign staff person reviews their reports in preparation for a group
conversation about what actions to reinforce, how refine messages, and other improvements.
Learn more: www.bethkanter.org/momsrising-key-results
“Our dashboards have multiple views –
a high level view and the ability to drill
down into specific campaigns.
This informs our discussion.”

35. Nuts and Bolts:
Dashboard Tools

36. 4 approaches to Dashboards
Static
spreadsheet
• Excel
• Google sheets
Built-in
dashboard
• Comes with your
database: CRM, CMS,
Email platform
Reporting/B.I./
dashboard tool
• Microsoft Power BI
• SAP
• Tableau
Custom
dashboards
• Need a programmer!

37. Pros
• Familiar tools
• No IT expertise needed
• Flexible, easy to customize
• Helps you experiment
Cons
• Less powerful than other tools
• Usually involves manual effort
• No real-time feedback
Spreadsheet Dashboards

38. Example: Excel
chandoo.org/wp/excel-dashboards

39. Example: Google Sheets
zapier.com/learn/google-sheets/google-sheets-dashboard-tutorial

40. Built-in Dashboards
Pros
• Pulls directly from existing data
automatically
• Often update in real time
• No new systems required
Cons
• Requires a robust dashboard
feature in your existing system
• System may not include all
relevant data

41. Example: SalesForce
salesforce.org/nonprofit (10 free licenses)

42. Example: MailChimp
kb.mailchimp.com/accounts/billing/about-mailchimp-discounts (15% off)

43. Example: Google Analytics
analytics.google.com (free)

44. Pros
• Integrate multiple data sources
• Not reliant on built-in
dashboard functionality
• More features available
(e.g. compared to a
spreadsheet)
Cons
• A new system to acquire and
learn
• May require IT assistance, or at
least tech savvy staff
Reporting /B.I./Dashboard Tools

45. Example: Zoho Reports
zoho.com/reports (free & paid plans)

46. Example: Qlik
qlik.com (free & paid plans)

47. Example: Tableau
tableau.com (eligible orgs can also get it at techsoupcanada.ca/directory/423)

48. Pros
• Exactly customized for you,
maximum flexibility
• Integrate multiple data sources
Cons
• Custom development (IT)
required
• Need capacity to maintain it
Custom Dashboards

49. Example: One Acre Fund
oneacrefund.org/results/impact

50. Example: Indianapolis Museum of Art
dashboard.imamuseum.org

51. You have access to free nonprofit tech resources
facebook.com/techsoupcanada
techsoupcanada.ca/learning_centre
techsoupcanada.ca/webinar
@techsoupcanada
techsoupcanada.ca/blog
techsoupcanada.ca/newslettersubscribe

52. Questions? Benjamin@techsoupcanada.ca