5 Reasons Your Nonprofit May Be Struggling with Using Data to Drive Strategy

Guest blog By: Stephanie E. Saville, President, Guiding Force Consulting, LLC

Natural-born do-gooders came into the nonprofit sector with one mission: to leave the world a better place. Nobody mentioned data in that scenario. Yet, what you measure is what you do – so what you measure matters. According to “The State of Data in the Nonprofit Sector,” 90% of nonprofits are collecting data, but only 40% of nonprofit professionals use that data to make decisions.

If data is so easily accessible these days, why aren’t more nonprofit leaders using data to drive strategy? Well, we know why…

• Not enough time – Most nonprofit professionals are working beyond capacity, sometimes filling in for open positions in addition to their own work, and they would prefer to dedicate their available time to other tasks

• Not enough experience using a donor database – The number of customer relationship management (CRM) databases on the market is expansive and growing every day. Which means you could use a different system at every organization you work at over the course of your career. Unless there’s a good onboarding process for training staff how to properly use the organization’s CRM and documentation that outlines organizational processes, many professionals will avoid learning the software and how to create reports and dashboards due to sheer overwhelm

• Data isn’t kept in one place – We all have loads of spreadsheets saved everywhere – our personal drive, the shared drive, on a flash drive, in email, etc. AND stuck in many different software programs as part of the organization’s tech stack. With so much information saved in many different places, it’s discouraging to consider any one platform having accurate data and providing the full picture to drive strategy

• Dirty databases – Even if your organization has the most efficient, detail-oriented staff entering in data, there’s bound to be incorrect information throughout your database. It could come from old/legacy data, integrations from the way the donor inputted their information in the online form, and that one co-worker who writes in all lowercase letters. Unless your organization practices ongoing data health checks, it can be difficult to trust the information in a CRM

• An organizational culture that doesn’t incentivize data capturing and using data – Unless the nonprofit’s leadership creates a culture to incentivize people to capture data, there’s no benefit (or consequence for that matter) for an employee to update the CRM with knowledge they obtain. For example, if a customer service representative learns that a caller is really happy with the organization, that may be something a major gift representative would love to know (people who love the organization are more likely to give). However, unless the customer service rep is incentivized to enter that information, it will likely be ignored.

If you want to become a more data driven nonprofit that uses the information to drive strategy, measure progress to goals, measure employee performance, and identify trends, find a way to address these top barriers to success.

If you’re collecting data but not using it to influence your decisions, the data doesn’t matter at all. If you never use the information, the need for data entry and data collection goes way down. Taking an honest look at how you use every piece of information collected and entered in your CRM can cut costs drastically through less hours spent on data entry, reduce the opportunity for “dirty” data, and reduce the amount of data available to hackers.

Everyone likes change, but not everyone likes changing. Being data driven will push people outside of their comfort zone and beyond the confines of their current experiences. This is as much about personal growth and development as it is about a data driven culture.

Guiding Force Consulting provides Salesforce solutions to nonprofits through implementations, customizations, automations, staff training, and consulting. To learn more, visit www.GuidingForceConsulting.com.

Source of some themes and concepts in this blog post: Data Driven Nonprofits by Steve McLaughlin