Part 3 What to do when you are not ready for a full scope evaluation
Sometimes the best strategy is to streamline your strategy. Refining some planning and assessment activities could help ensure your to do, to think, and to evaluate lists are doable. Other times we just need a practical way to begin or make progress – without biting off more than we can (or should) chew. Either way, look no further for some sensible alternative routes to your goal.
Table of Contents
1. Overview
2. Find Your Why and Get to the Point of Data Collection and Information Generation
3. Three Ideas for Light Touch Data Management and Analysis
4. What's Next
5. Resources to Fill Your Toolbox
Key Takeaways
Before embarking on any data dive, know your why: what is it you want to know, do, or communicate.
Any type of data collection (internal or from external sources) should also have for good data hygiene and a plan for it.
Use your why to determine whether you will narrow your focus to reviewing data about progress or performance for your big picture goals or smaller scale activities.
Data is only useful when it is known, so be transparent and find small ways to share what you know – the wins and the progress.
Overview
Successful management is not just about what you do, but how you do it. For this reason, we are looking at how to refine your approach, including opportunities to streamline your practices. While this series is not about life, business, or time “hacking,” it is about the ways thoughtful approaches can help you take the most direct steps to your goals.
Last time we explored how distinguishing goals from priorities can help us make better decisions about what we say yes to and give us power to intentionally shape what yes means, which we covered in Part 1.
In this post we look at something that is often so big, so convoluted, so messy, and so time consuming, that it often goes undone or unused: quality data collection and analysis. Let’s look specifically at how to streamline the approach by highlighting three things to do when you are not ready (for whatever reason!) for a full scope evaluation.
Find Your Why and Get to the Point of Data Collection and Information Generation
Before we dive into your options, important to any data inquiry is the why: what is important for you to know, do, or say? Narrowing your focus is the first step to streamlining your approach to data collection and generating useful information.
This means getting clear on what data can do and being honest about where you are now.
There are multiple reasons for reviewing and exploring data, including to:
Track performance (whether activities, operations, or models are effective or can be improved)
Describe what is happening in the community, field, or organization and communicate it
Set goals
Track progress towards goals or objectives
Improve your programs
Plan your next course of action (strategy)
Allocate your resources
Predict upcoming trends
Understand your clients, donors, funders, and audiences
Data is powerful. However, it is useless if you don’t look at it or understand its relevance, or if you can’t trust it. This is why any approach to data, whether a large evaluation or a bite sized review, must account for purpose (strategy, goals, eventual uses), quality (reliability and accuracy of the data – among other things), and metrics (what you are tracking or measuring).
What follows is not a how to guide for data management or analysis. Instead, consider these ideas for a flexible approach to data analysis and management.
A refined approach like this is for you if you:
are looking for somewhere to start or continue data collection, management, analysis, or storytelling
want to maintain or build momentum but lack time or resources
want to focus on the most impactful data strategy for your cause, and/or
want to prevent or break analysis paralysis
So, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Here are three bite sized opportunities to meaningfully engage with your data in a streamlined way that makes sense for your why.
Three Ideas for Light Touch Data Management and Analysis
1. Keep it Clean...and Organized
There are many opportunities to clean and organize your data. However, some are more simple than others for ensuring quality data you can and will use. These tips apply whether your data is your HR tool, donor management database, client information system or customer relationship management (CRM) software. If you are collecting information somewhere, you should keep it clean and organized.
Here are my top 3 tips:
Have a written process to enter the data that everyone can follow or be trained to use.
This can be a brief bullet point of instructions, or, even better, a policy or manual that details how to consistently enter data, fix errors, and update records, and what information is optional or mandatory to collect.
Update records with regularity, but at least once per year.
This includes three main activities: removing duplicate entries, correcting inaccurate data, and updating or completing records. There should be no missing names! Everyone has one!
Too much is almost always too much. Collect and keep only what you need.
A quick litmus test: Can you can maintain, manage, review, analyze, or use all the data you are collecting? If not, it is at best annoying and at worst disrespectful of the respondent’s time or experiences. In cases of vulnerable populations, repeatedly being asked for information that may be difficult to discuss, hard to find or prove, or just plain invasive, can be traumatizing, overwhelming, or breed distrust. More often than not, less is enough.
2. Narrow Down What to Track
There is a bunch of jargon that gets conflated and confusing about tracking and measuring performance and progress. For now, we will focus on two. Key performance indicators (KPIs) measure performance based on major goals. Metrics measure performance or progress for specific activities. I recommend identifying an operational category (such as fund development, intake, program exits, etc.) and funneling down from KPIs to benchmarks or milestones then to metrics for the activities needed to accomplish any of the above.
Clearly understanding what you are measuring and tracking is the best way to narrow your approach. Are you looking at performance toward big picture goals (like strategic plan goals) or progress towards a smaller objective (like program participation or email open rates)? Go back and remember your why. It will tell you where to look and what level to track and measure.
Here are my top 3 tips:
Find the baseline.
This essentially means looking for historical data that will show the historical performance of an organization, program, or activity. Knowing where you came from is the best way to know where you are going. This baseline data will give you something to measure future performance by, enabling you to say: we have improved, we need improvement, or things are staying the same.
Consider prioritizing the category of fund development.
This could look like reviewing general nonprofit fundraising metrics (e.g., cost per dollar raised, recurring gift percentage, or board member participation rate). You could also look at donors (donor retention or growth rates, donor demographics, or your donor growth rate). Other options in this category could include giving levels, online engagement or performance. Don’t forget that fund development as a category can include other income streams beyond donors (contracts, grants, legacies, program income, property or investments that can be converted to cash, etc.), so see what they have to tell you too.
Don’t forget the value of qualitative data. Ask the questions and consistently record and track the responses.
Someone telling you what they need and what is useful to them is so much more helpful to solving problems than looking at an amalgamation of information about unique individuals watered down by aggregated data. This allows you to understand which stakeholders are impacted and how, without over reliance on often imperfect data quality. Consider organizing responses by project, year, content category (i.e. employment services), or even population (i.e., youth voices, single parent feedback). Yes, this is part of a bigger process, but you have permission to start with what you have.
3. Create Transparency for Your Stakeholders
Data is only useful when it is known! Transparency can mean a variety of things from published annual reports to newsletter updates on the last fundraiser to data dashboards and employee evaluations. How you share what you have matters, whether leveraging existing tools or building new ones.
Here are my top 3 tips:
Start or update your organization’s annual report using two or three new or significant data points.
This could be a metric on donors, progress towards a goal, or a section featuring unique qualitative input from constituents (more points if you used that feedback to make improvements!).
Use data from your periodic or annual funder program reporting on your website or social media to highlight your wins or share progress.
This could look like a newsletter blurb or a social media shout out about a standout employee’s contribution to accomplishing a significant project milestone or a website call to action to encourage donations to help you further your success.
Use anonymized aggregated human resource data in staff and board meetings for internal improvements.
This could be used to get feedback on benefits offered, used, or needed or creating equitable living wages and promotion or training opportunities.
There are various other operational and program categories and corresponding KPIS and metrics that may be worthwhile to explore the next time you face a lack of resources or need a feasible bite sized approach to eating the data elephant. Free tip for reading this far! Look online for published evaluations or assessments of projects like yours (i.e., “evaluations or assessments of…” transitional housing programs, middle school tutoring programs, clothing donation programs, etc.) to find some baseline and unique metrics that you can borrow or refashion. No need to reinvent the wheel.
In the meantime, be kind to yourself and your future respondents. There is no need to weaponize[1] your data or buy into only a single metric of “effectiveness”[2]. The truth is, the carefully considered efforts you make to measure or understand your work is often the most useful way to engage with your data and find legitimate answers to your “why”. So don’t be afraid to streamline or take it one affordable, actionable step at a time. Over time, you will see results.
Endnotes [1] Nonprofit AF. "Weaponized Data: How the Obsession with Data Has Been Hurting Marginalized Communities." Nonprofit AF, 26 May 2015. https://nonprofitaf.com/2015/05/weaponized-data-how-the-obsession-with-data-has-been-hurting-marginalized-communities/ [2] Nonprofit AF. "How the Concept of Effectiveness Has Screwed Nonprofits and the People We Serve." Nonprofit AF, 11 December 2017. https://nonprofitaf.com/2017/12/how-the-concept-of-effectiveness-has-screwed-nonprofits-and-the-people-we-serve/
What’s Next
Ask
When was the last time you ensured your data was clean and organized?
Do you know your baseline data for your most important programs and operations? If not, how could it benefit you to prioritize fund development as an area for tracking and review?
Where can you commit to being more open and clear about your work or operations?
Test
Review your latest annual report or website. Consider where to add a few juicy data points support your claims, goals, or requests. Put together a call to action around that proof of your efforts that you can use in other materials.
Is there a question you’ve been anxious to know the answer to? Ask your data! If it can’t tell you, then you know your next step is to identify how to collect that information and considering the right KPIs or metrics to track your progress.
Stay Tuned
Watch this space for more information on how to successfully refine your approach and updates to this content.
Resources to Fill Your Toolbox
1. Don’t fear imperfect metrics. An older post with relevance, “Using Imperfect Metrics Well”, available here.
2. A really good exploration of fund development metrics from Donor Search, “Nonprofit Fundraising Metrics: 32 KPIs to Measure Success”, available here.
3. A brief overview of KPIs by category from Constant Contact, “Nonprofit KPIs You Should Be Watching: A Helpful List”, available here.
4. On what equitable evaluation looks like, “Measuring is an Act of Power: A Call for Pro Black Measurement and Evaluation”, available here.
This post is part of the “Refinement: Success in the Streamlined Approach” series.
If you need ideas or support to streamline or improve your processes, please reach out. From decision-making frameworks to goal setting, action planning, and board assessments, I’ve seen it and done it. Let me know how I can help you achieve your values-oriented goals. If you would just like to chat or partner, I’m here for that too!
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