Dealing with data fragmentation: Five essential tips for nonprofits

Transcript:

Hi there. My name is Lindsay. I'm The Data Coach, and today we're gonna talk about what nonprofits can do about data fragmentation in their organization. So what's data fragmentation? Data fragmentation happens when all of our data is stored in a bunch of different places, whether that's spreadsheets, databases, sometimes even paper files. And there's no way for any of those systems to meaningfully talk to each other.

When data is disconnected like this, it can cause challenges for data analysis and reporting. It can result in redundant work for staff, and also sometimes missed opportunities for things like partnerships or potential funding.

So if your donor data is in one system, your program data is in another, you have a few volunteer spreadsheets rolling around and somewhere there is a box of [00:01:00] paper feedback forms, here are five tips to help you consolidate the data you have and make it more usable for your organization.

So the first thing that you're gonna do is digitize all of your paper files into a usable format. What do I mean by usable format? I mean a format that's going to make it easy for you to analyze the data that's there. So for instance, if you've got that box of paper feedback forms, you may be tempted to scan all of that into PDFs and digitize it that way.

The problem is when it comes to analyzing survey responses, PDFs aren't the easiest way to extract and get results from that data. In most cases, a usable format is gonna be something like an Excel spreadsheet or entering the data into an existing database.

I strongly recommend using an existing database if you have [00:02:00] one, because we're trying to get as much information as we can into a central location. This can be a really great project for interns or volunteers. Just make sure you're really specific about what information from the files needs to go into the database and what needs to be left out. In addition, make sure that your interns and your volunteers are signing off on data confidentiality and privacy forms that are relevant for your organization.

The second thing that you can do is find and fix the overlaps in information. So one consequence of having data in multiple locations is that we can end up with duplicate information. When that happens, it can be really difficult to remember which system has the most recent data.

And then if we find mistakes in one system, then we have to go back and see if those mistakes exist in the other systems, and that can be a lot of redundant work for staff. [00:03:00] To fix this kind of problem, you need to identify where your duplicate or repetitive information might live, and again, choose one place for it to go.

So if you have data overlaps between the people in your donor database and the people in your volunteer spreadsheet, ask yourself if there are ways to take the information in that spreadsheet and put it in the database. So you might add a checkbox that indicates whether or not a donor is also a volunteer. You might add some dropdowns that indicate the kind of volunteer work they do, or how many hours per week or per month they volunteer. Or you may just wanna upload all that information from your spreadsheets into your donor database. Choose whatever works best for your organization. Again, the goal here is to get as much information into one location as we can.

A third thing that you can do is encourage regular data sharing between your departments. [00:04:00] So, you might have program directors that have really interesting outcome information that could be really useful for your communications team or your fundraising team.

But their systems don't talk to each other and they're not in the habit of sharing data with each other. To address this, talk to your different department heads about what they're collecting, what they wish they had, and see if there are other departments that can fill in some of those information gaps for them.

You can share this data by setting up reports in your databases and then share the results with everybody else. You can do this by setting up dashboards in Excel or some other software system that everyone can access as needed, whatever it is that you wanna do.

If you would like more information about how to build quick dashboards in Excel, I will link a couple of tutorial videos in the description box below.

The fourth thing that you can do is set up [00:05:00] automations with APIs. The technical definition, from our friends at IBM is, "a set of rules or protocols that enable software applications to communicate with each other, to exchange data, features and functionality." Basically what this means is that APIs serve as a bridge between two software systems that would not normally communicate with each other and makes it possible for them to work together to do certain tasks.

Now, you don't need to be a programmer or a computer scientist to start using APIs. There are tools out there that will do the technical work for you. For instance, if you go to our website and you take our Nonprofit Data Health Assessment and you enter your email address into the form

I use Zapier to take the email address that you entered and automatically send it to a program called MailerLite, which is what I use for my email newsletters. That automatic zap, as they're called, [00:06:00] allows me to keep all of my email subscribers in one place without me having to do any additional work. Plus, it makes sure that email addresses are entered into this system exactly as the person intended without me retyping it in and potentially making spelling errors or messing it up in some other way. So these kind of automations are gonna be good for not just keeping everything in a central location, but also for data quality.

This video is not sponsored by Zapier. They don't know that I exist and probably don't care I use their systems and that's fine.

There are alternatives like Make, Give Butter, If This, Then That. I can't vouch for any of those personally, but if you are interested in learning more about them, I will link an article down below that'll give you an overview of each of them. If you would like me to do a deeper dive into APIs and how they might help your organization, let me know in the comments.

And also if you are using Zapier or any of their alternatives, would [00:07:00] love to know if they're working for you, how you're using them, what's not really working for you down in the comments below. Share your wisdom with others.

The final thing that you can do is reconsider all of your data systems. I read this really interesting article a while back, "Examing the use of data by nonprofit organizations." And one thing that the authors really made a point about was that organizations tend to use a lot of different free or cheap software systems for data collection, storage, analysis. But these systems are not always the most customizable and they tend to be a lot of work to maintain. They look very attractive on the surface, right? We're always looking for cheap alternatives to things. We're not trying to spend a million dollars, but there does come a point where nonprofit leaders do have to ask themselves what is the cost in terms of staff time, resources, potential missed [00:08:00] opportunities of maintaining multiple, cheap or free systems compared to something that is specifically designed to meet all of your organization's needs and goals?

Now choosing to go down this road obviously takes a lot of commitment. It takes staff time, it takes resources, money, it's not a decision to be made lightly and it may not be the right call for your organization in this moment. But if you have tried all the other tips and you're still struggling with your data being all over the place, it is probably time to consider other data systems that are better aligned with what your nonprofit needs. In the long run, having the right tools to do the work you need to do to meet your mission is well worth the investment.

As always at the Data Coach, we are here to help your nonprofit with any of their data related problems. If you would like to schedule a free consult call with us, I will leave our Calendly link in the [00:09:00] description box and you can go ahead and schedule that for yourself.

And be sure to check out the other videos in our data management series for more guidance on how to deal with data at a nonprofit organization. Please like and subscribe to stay up to date on our latest videos. Please share with your friends and colleagues that you think might be interested. And as always, thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time.

Bye.

Lindsay: once again, no respect for the filming process, ma'am.

Lindsay: Or you may just decide you're gonna upload everything from that spreadsheet into your donor database. I swear to God. Hi, it's my dog's tail. Mama girl. I'm trying to talk about data. Bye. [00:10:00] What hell was I talking about

Lindsay: for instance, if you, what is that noise? This video brought to you by my haunted house apparently.

Yeah, we really went wild with that highlighter. No regrets.

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