The Joy and Pain of Data: Q&A with three CEOs
Libby Harkins, Business and Sales Analyst
In November we held a webinar 'The Joy and Pain of Data: A CEO's perspective'. We had presentations from Sara Robinson (Centre Director, St Augustine's Centre), Katie Eastaugh (CEO, The Cart Shed) and Sarah Derbyshire (CEO, Orchestras Live) about the data journeys their organisations have been on.
Sara spoke about the implementation of a CRM system at St Augustine's Centre – the benefits, the difficulties, and gave examples of how it is used and the insights they can gain. Katie described how The Cart Shed has adopted digital systems and developed a Theory of Change. She also talked about their difficult journey with finding a suitable CRM provider. Finally, Sarah explained how Orchestra’s Live started to use their data for the evaluation of services and measuring impact. She explained how they needed to communicate data in order to use it to make decisions.
A recording of the presentations can be found here.
We also hosted a Q&A session with Katie, Sara and Sarah. We didn’t record it, but it was so interesting, we have pulled out some of the key points in this post.
Here’s what we asked them...
How much do you talk to other CEOs about data?
All three CEOs said that they rarely talk about data explicitly with other CEOs. They did acknowledge that sometimes you are talking about data without realising it. When you talk about the people who use your service, for example, you will talk about data without even noticing.
How did you engage staff and volunteers on the data journey?
It can be difficult to get the whole team involved and behind you on your data journey. People aren’t always happy with changes, and often don’t want to spend time doing ‘boring data things’, such as inputting data. Sara said they even lost a couple of volunteers during the transition.
All three CEOs agreed that showing the impact and the value of using data really helps. When staff ask “why can’t we do this or that”, a CEO can point to needing data and systems for that to happen.
Having a data expert on the team, or a trustee that understands the value of data, can help shift attitudes. Also, if you can enthuse one or two staff members their enthusiasm will spread.
How do you deal with staff/volunteers that struggle with the IT technicalities?
The overlap between digital maturity and data maturity cannot be ignored. The tools and systems required to organise and analyse data can take a bit of getting used to. Showing the value in these systems and what the outcome is can help motivate people to keep investing time and energy into learning. Training needs to be continuous. Sara explained that at St. Augustine’s, they have 5 minutes in every staff meeting where someone shows a CRM top tip.
What knowledge and skills have you needed to develop as a leader to get your organisation to where it is today?
All CEOs acknowledged the value of having a person (or multiple people!) with capacity to manage data and make sure you are getting the most out of it. They also agreed on the lesson that investment is needed to make progress with data – both financial and time.
Sara said that she must also learn the system herself so she can model by example. Showing excitement when pulling reports together and sharing them can be moving and motivating. Katie echoed this when she said the main skill she needed was leadership and being able to enthuse other staff members (she admitted she is not currently allowed onto the CRM because she keeps breaking things!). Sarah highlighted the point that a CEO will never be a data expert. As a CEO, the better you get with data and the more you see it can do, the more you realise you, and your organisation, need further skills – it’s never a finished task and you’re always working at it, so it’s OK to ask for help.
What was the biggest challenge you faced when improving your approach to data?
For Sarah, the biggest challenge was staff time. As with many charities, staff are very busy and asking people to take the time to do something new and differently can be a big ask.
Katie said her challenge was getting started. She explained that the data needs to be correct when first input into the system. The organisation now rejects records if they aren’t done correctly. It is a long process. They have been on the journey for several years but feel it’s still very early days in terms of extracting data, so keeping faith is important.
Sara added that capturing impact and qualitative data can be challenging.
So, what do you do about qualitative data?
At Orchestras Live they have been trying out different things when gathering qualitative data. Sarah said that less is more. Limited and carefully crafted free text questions are helpful, as is asking a wide range of people (including partners and stakeholders). They have also been experimenting with video and other storytelling devices to gather and communicate qualitative data.
Some unanswered questions…
We didn’t get time to discuss every single question asked, but as promised the speakers have answered them for you here.
Katie, I’m currently trying to persuade the charities I work with that they absolutely need a Theory of Change, any tips on what I could say to the CEOs I work with that might speak to their interests?
“What’s your elevator pitch – I give you 20 seconds... If you cannot state it, how are you managing to convey what you do and the impact you are trying to achieve, particularly when approaching funders? Would be the way I’d start...”
Katie, sounds like you have a few challenges in your choice of CRM consultants – based on this experience, what would you advise another organisation who has to do this?
“It’s a difficult one. Ask a number of CEOs who have gone through the process, perhaps on a platform like LinkedIn, who they have used and what the experience was like. I was so ignorant of what I was getting into that I didn’t ask the right questions because you don’t know what you don’t know! A list of questions – maybe something Data Orchard could produce as a top 10 hints – would be a really useful tool” [Actually Data Orchard already has, here's a quick 10 step guide to a successful CRM project implementation.]
Sarah, I love the sound of your working groups and regular reflection meetings. Could you share a bit more about the practicalities of this please? How did you recruit to the working groups, who is part of them, how often do they meet?
Working groups are made up of trustees and staff. Membership is chosen for relevance of skills, interests and, in the case of staff, role. Our Production and Insight Co-ordinator, who is the central point for all data, sits on each working group with me. The working groups have each established an action plan for their area, which we review at each meeting and report annually to the Board. During a business planning period we’d expect each group to meet once or twice; no more than four times a year.
Reflections meetings are internal. Core membership is me, Production & Insight Co-ordinator, and the Producer team who manage our partnerships and co-design projects and programmes. We meet quarterly, in order to feed reflections into a Board report on performance. We review data and feedback, as well as results of specific actions like Partner Surveys and Needs Analysis. This integrates internal assessment of projects and partners with data on external perceptions.
Sarah, Orchestras Live seems quite mature in terms of their approach to data, what systems do you use and how many people do you have working on it (are they dedicated or as part of their role)? We have a lot of data but we do not use it “smartly”. What would be your suggestions to get us started?
In a staff team of eleven (four part-time) we have one staff role who is central to all data collection and analysis – Production and Insight Co-ordinator. Data is central, but not exclusive, to their role.
They work closely with me to set strategy and develop analysis for reporting. They also co-ordinate and interconnect with key teams in the organisation: Production, Communications, Funding Development. They have recently researched and co-ordinated the implementation of a new CRM – GoodCRM. They have a part time assistant – this role has recently had ‘data’ added to the title: Data and Administration Assistant.
We currently use Excel for a great deal of data management and reporting. In time, we expect GoodCRM to absorb or add to our data collection and reporting.
I would recommend recruiting a trustee who has an interest in data and good communication skills, to help you understand and share the benefits of developing your approach to data for the whole organisation. Data Orchard’s Data Maturity Assessment tool was very helpful in showing us where we could improve and what the benefits would be.
In the chat…
Several interesting questions were asked and answered in the chat. We didn’t want these to get forgotten!
Sara, how do you plan to make more space for reflecting and using data to make decisions? Also, are there particular decisions you have in mind that you’d like to be using data/making space for, that you haven’t been able to yet?
“Well the plan is... away days with everyone / team deep dives / board meetings / asking individual staff to explore it and come back with findings to discuss – but we need help to make space and ask the right questions – such as what is attendance telling us? Do people from certain countries engage more? What can we stop doing? Where are the greatest needs (health and housing) and do we have the right staffing capacity to meet these? And how do we prioritise that, in and amongst all we do...???”
Sara, can you tell us a little more about the problems that you faced and why you needed to invest more money to invite Lamplight back in ? The system sounds fabulous but worried about the ongoing financial commitment to resolve issues.
“You need to understand a bit about coding to create certain lists. Tonnes of specific issues like parent and child relationships being swapped / how we record volunteer involvement which is different. The financial commitment isn’t loads to be honest – Lamplight is comparatively a good deal”
Sarah, what system do Orchestra Live use? What are the annual costs?
Our systems are largely bespoke, developed in house. We have just moved on to a new database with monthly costs that are only a moderate increase on our previous system.
Sarah, you mentioned that you are now looking at trying to capture soft data – what are you doing here?
“Surveys – participants, partners, audiences. Crafting questions for free text responses really carefully. Sliding scale data that enables us to report percentage trends over time.”
Did your Boards support you and how? Was there one trustee who was key or was it the whole board?
“For us [St Augustine's Centre] they get it but don’t have much expertise themselves. They love that they get brilliant board reports as a result of it”
And finally…
To wrap up the discussion the panel chair, Sian Basker, asked each of the CEOs what they would say to leaders that want to do something about data but don’t feel they have the time. The following summarises their responses:
Ask for help. You cannot do it on your own.
Look for ‘quick wins’ – Data Orchard’s Data Maturity Assessment was helpful in findings these and chunking up what needs doing.
Talk to your board. You need them behind you, so it’s good to see where they stand.
You are in charge of valuable funds that need to be going towards something that is working. So prove your value and your worth.
Talk to organisations similar to yours who are further along in their data journey. They have valuable insight and will have a better idea of how you operate than a far-away consultant.
Why wouldn’t you do it? All that information and detail is there for the taking, and it is juicy.
We really appreciate the time that each of our CEOs gave up to join our panel discussion. We know, from the feedback, that webinar attendees really appreciated the opportunity to hear directly from their peers in the nonprofit sector.
Data Orchard runs a regular programme of data events for people in nonprofit organisations. Do keep in touch. You can:
A recording of our webinar - The Joy and Pain of Data: A CEO’s perspective