Building data pathways and bridges: supporting small nonprofits
Madeleine Spinks, Co-CEO
Data Orchard’s original foundations were in providing support to small community groups to help gather the evidence they needed to determine spatial planning in their areas. We provided support on research design, data collection, governance, consultation and engagement and analysed data gathered from over 50 local areas.
A decade on, and we now provide broad-ranging support to enable the effective use of data to a variety of organisations from small to large. We’re pleased to work alongside many other capacity-building consultancies, who are themselves micro to small like us. So, we were heartened when our friends at Superhighways and Think Social Tech recently launched a great report on their research on Small charity data journeys at an event with small charities, umbrella organisations, funders, and those like us who provide support with all things data.
The research findings chimed clearly with our experiences supporting organisations, and our own research into data maturity in the social sector. I loved the visual analogies that were used of 'pathways' (goals for moving forwards with data), 'swamps' (challenges and areas of data work where people get stuck) and 'bridges' (key things to navigate swamps). The launch event ended with a call to action for the sector to come together to better support small charity data journeys.
How we can support data journeys
With that in mind, for our part, here's how we at Data Orchard can help organisations with building pathways and bridges to navigate swamps:
Collect better data: We can help you determine where to start depending on what you want to evidence, whether this is support for impact measurement, designing a survey or doing some research for your organisation.
Make sense of data: We can help analyse your data, develop dashboards or help you choose a CRM – particularly if you don't yet have the skills or capacity to do this in-house.
Act on insights: Our data maturity assessment tool helps organisations start a dialogue about data and provides a good starting point for developing a data strategy and roadmap to improve with data. It has been particularly central to organisations looking to shift the dial in developing a data culture.
Influence change: Our mission is to enable every nonprofit organisation to use data effectively to achieve their goals. A key part of this is to build capabilities and skills, by supporting organisations to recruit or develop data expertise, or running events and training courses. Do check them out!
Our Nonprofit Datafolk Club holds informal, free monthly online gatherings. January's workshop is particularly relevant – on Data and Small Nonprofits, and do join us for December's Festive Social.
Data for Nonprofit Leaders is our tailor-made course for senior leaders in nonprofits, looking to lead their organisation towards better use of data. The next cohort will kick off 17 April 2024, and early bird prices are available until 19 January 2024.