Taking BI One Step at a Time - Finding Your Data Footing!

Do you have the answers to questions about your programs' effectiveness, your most engaged donors, or your most significant expenses? At your fingertips?

If not, have you considered adopting a Business Intelligence (BI) approach? BI is a process by which non-profit organizations (NPOs) apply strategies and technologies for analyzing current and historical data to improve their decision-making and amplify impact.

For NPOs with small teams in the early stages of exploring data solutions (whether just getting started or considering initial adoption), I am sharing a high-level view of BI and some broad themes and factors for consideration. The exact specifications of a BI system and its implementation will, of course, vary depending on the specific circumstances of your NPO.

Before Getting Started

Like all key initiatives, unwavering executive sponsorship and support are critical prerequisites for any BI initiative. Non-negotiable!??

A Gradual BI Adoption Path

In 2022, Gartner (a Connecticut-based research and consulting firm) predicted that only 20% of insights will deliver business outcomes. In other words, there is an 80% gap between expectations and reality. To avoid this outcome and achieve long-term success with BI, NPOs can adopt an incremental approach. By breaking down the BI project into phases, with improvements implemented by phase, the proposed solution can be improved through an iterative process, resulting in value creation at every step. This process helps build a well-functioning BI framework that caters to the specific needs of your team.

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BI Starter Kit

Before take-off, the NPO team needs to define specific problems they want to solve or target areas for improved decision-making. Answering questions like "What processes are taking longer than needed?" or "What tasks are becoming increasingly time-consuming?" is a great starting point.

For NPOs embarking on their BI journey, a starter kit typically consists of taking stock of your current data environment across three dimensions to identify opportunities for improvement:

a) Auditing the data environment to identify the data sources critical to the operations, funding, and decision-making processes; assessing data quality.

b) While taking inventory of the tools currently employed to analyze and report on their data (think analytics dashboards and visualization software), answer how data is currently analyzed & reported on.

c) The above steps would also identify the gaps in their data framework. NPOs frequently struggle with siloed data sources, lack of access to real-time insights, and repetitive manual data entry processes. These result in problems ranging from integrating data from different sources to time-consuming, error-prone data entry processes.

Explore Leveraging Existing Tech Stack

When considering a BI solution, it is worthwhile exploring leveraging existing technologies, tools, and platforms to build efficiencies. There might also be opportunities to leverage existing built-in analytics or reporting capabilities in the NPO's donor/CRM database (where available). I believe there are inherent advantages to adopting this approach – lower staff training costs, reduced disruption & downtime, and benefiting from staff buy-in given familiarity with the technology, leading to a higher probability of staff adoption & usage – all plus points in typical NPO environments characterized by strained resources. ?

Target Quick Wins & Low-Hanging Fruit

An ideal next step is to target quick wins to enable efficiency gains in a relatively short period. Typically, these lie within existing processes that can be improved or integrated. Examples could involve automating repetitive manual data entry tasks (like periodic data consolidation from multiple sources into a single dashboard).

Again, I believe there are multiple benefits to reap from grabbing low-hanging fruit. Focusing on achievable goals and delivering quick results demonstrates the value of BI, builds momentum for more complex and ambitious initiatives in the future, and loosens any pockets of staff resistance in the process. Successful solutions with fewer features but fast-tracked are also likely to be more responsive to business needs.

But the BI process does not stop here!

With primary inefficiencies addressed and the value of BI demonstrated, NPOs can prioritize use cases with higher impact potential and greater complexity. These priorities can be quantitative factors like expected cost savings and revenue growth potential or qualitative factors such as improved service delivery. As the staff gains proficiency using BI tools, the NPO can gradually expand its usage to other applications.

It is important to remember that a BI framework is not static; it needs timely adjustments to ensure the initiatives align with the evolving needs and goals of the NPO. Implementing a system to track indicators such as user acceptance rates, influence on overall organizational effectiveness, and stakeholder input is crucial in assessing the effectiveness of BI efforts. ?

Keeping the Focus

The journey to building BI competency for an NPO leads to transforming its data into a strategic asset. It is a journey, not a destination. The early temptation is often to go after the latest “shiny” new tool. The true challenge is staying focused on taking small incremental steps leading to sustained, meaningful change, allowing NPOs to harness the power of data-centric decision-making.

One step at a time!

#nonprofits #techforgood #philanthropy #

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Indu Sambandam (Agaya Consulting Inc.) is dedicated to helping mission-oriented/social impact organizations struggling to unlock the full potential of their data.

The views expressed in this post are based on my interactions with several non-profits specifically in Canada & the United States. It is important to note that these opinions are not intended to be representative of other regions. The content reflects my personal opinions and should not be considered a substitute for professional advice.