Data Collection on a Budget: Analytics For Non Profits

Non Profits would be able to benefit substantially from analytics. While the work that they do would not require teams of analysts that a for profit organization would require, nonetheless, resource limitations that most Non Profit organizations face would make it exceptionally difficult to do analytics work on a part with a for profit organization.

Thankfully, because of the nature of the work that most non profit organizations do, analytics do not need to be nearly as elaborate as most for profit organizations. Therefore, what you need to do is to find ways to work within your resources. Thankfully, there are quite a few apps in existence that are priced with non profit pricing. Consider trying to utilize these whenever possible.

Regardless of what you do as well as what your resources are, what is important is that you do everything in your power to ensure that you have the highest quality data. This will enable you to gain the most insight possible, as well as ensure that what you are seeing has the highest level of accuracy attainable.

With limited resources, consider this possible approach to getting data. Years ago, I served as President of an Orchestra. We spent an entire season surveying our audience. The results were such that we were able to determine the municipalities that our audience came from. This was particularly helpful in determining the percentage of people that could be classified as tourists according to the State of South Carolina, thereby making a case for local accommodations tax monies.

Doing annual surveys such as this would not be productive, especially since the audience would likely tune them out quickly. Doing them when it appears that the audience has changed significantly demographically would be expedient, but such events would usually take several years to transpire. Therefore, the effectiveness of a survey such as this could last for a long time. The analytics used here could then be extended to hard and fast numbers such as audience attendance, thereby giving an idea about the number of people coming from different locations.

As can be imagined, the orchestra did not employ an analyst (let alone have the budget for one.) However, problems that an analyst would normally handle were effectively dealt with, and effective use of these numbers went a long way in showing the makeup of the audience, both in terms of demographics as well as regions that people lived who supported the orchestra.

This is just an example of analytics used by a nonprofit. At the end of the day, some non profits might require more, some might require less. There will likely need to be some substantial work done so that grants can be won. Most likely, this work will not require a statistician, but will need someone who has a good sense with numbers in order to study them and best figure out what to do with them.

One helpful way to determine the analytics work that could be undertaken is work done by organizations that service non profits in your organization's sector. For an orchestra, the League of American Orchestras is such an organization. By providing benchmark information, the ability to quickly identify areas of study come into focus. Therefore, consider the possibility of pursuing membership in an organization such as this.

Because of the limited nature of non profit resources, pick your battles wisely with analytics. Take a surgical approach and focus on the analytics that will yield the highest return, especially when it comes to securing funding. As noted above, you don’t have to focus on collecting all of your data yearly as long as you take a thorough approach to its collection. 

In conclusion, analytics can be extremely helpful for your organization. However, it can be tricky to implement due to constraints. Do not hesitate to be creative in achieving it while making sure that you collect the purest, most accurate date in the process. If you approach things in this capacity, you might not ever be able to employ a full time analyst, but you will be able to ensure that you make the most of your data.