Orchestras Live - A leading light in data maturity
Orchestras Live believes orchestras are for everyone. They are a national charity passionate that people from all backgrounds, areas and ages should have the opportunity to participate in and be inspired by the highest quality orchestral experiences. They create projects where music and creativity can thrive and their collaborations with professional orchestras, educators, venues, promoters and communities are at the heart of their work. Each year around 30,000 people benefit from these experiences.
Monitoring targets vs understanding impact
Sarah Derbyshire, CEO, joined the organisation in 2016. Even then, Orchestras Live’s data-use was considered ‘ahead of the game’ for a cultural organisation. Thanks to the connections of one of their trustees, they had a bespoke dashboard which recorded progress against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and was used to report to the board.
But Sarah was increasingly aware that the dashboard was useful for recording success against finite targets, rather than exploring data in ways that helped understand and improve the impact of the organisation.
The team embarked on a journey to begin improving and refining their data use and reporting. Although they made improvements toward this, Sarah was conscious that more needed to be done to improve their ability to make data-informed decisions, and they needed to map out their journey to improvement.
Assessing data maturity a first time
In 2020, Orchestras Live used the Organisational version of our Data Maturity Assessment Tool to take their first assessment.
Unusually, 100% of staff and many trustees took part, giving them a rich picture of how data was seen and used in different parts of the organisation. Sarah said:
“Principally we learned that within the organisation, people had very different ideas about what data is and how we could use it. Staff weren’t using data for planning. They had a clear picture of the process for inputting data, but not the results. Only the people close to reporting to the board were really actually engaging with data.”
The results of the first data maturity assessment prompted Orchestras Live to put a new emphasis on data in the organisation. Over the next few years they:
developed and implemented a data strategy that fed into the business planning for 2022/23.
created a new data-focused role (which has evolved into the current role of ‘Production, Data and Insight Analyst’). Soon after, they also added a data and administration assistant.
completed a full data audit and worked on streamlining processes and focusing the data they were collecting.
adopted and rolled out a new customer relationship management (CRM) system.
created working groups made up of trustees and staff to inform organisational decisions and regularly reflect on progress. Four working groups were formed around the Arts Council England Investment Principles, with two of these having a particular focus on data:
Ambition and quality - looking at perceptions of the organisation and measurement of impact
Dynamism - looking at how they use data to inform planning, understand costs and drive income generation.
As Orchestras Live developed this more sophisticated approach to data, they were able to explore new areas where data could help them improve their services.
They began using data to track their performance around diversity and inclusion, as well as environmental responsibility, and were now able to develop data-informed processes in relation to these, with support from their working groups. Another of the key developments is a new model for looking at their impact in terms of ‘return on investment’. Sarah says:
“Following on from our first assessment and the groundwork we’d done, we were now able to take a much more considered approach to assessing the extent to which our investment of resources helps us deliver on the aims of our business plan. Our return on investment model doesn’t give us cold hard scores, but it encourages us to ask questions of ourselves to inform planning and decision making.”
Taking stock and refocusing: A second data maturity assessment
After all this hard work, by 2023, the team felt it was time to take stock and objectively measure their progress. Karys Staddon, the Production, Data and Insight Analyst was keen to take the organisation through a second data maturity assessment:
“We obviously made some conclusions about where we were on our journey after doing the first data maturity assessment. To be able to come back a few years later and revisit that - at what felt like quite a different point in time - was really useful.”
Sarah adds:
“There isn't another way that we could gauge our progress independently. Without the assessment, we would be forced into the area of anecdote, which, given our focus on the importance of data, isn't what we wanted to do!”
Again 100% of staff completed the assessment, along with most of the trustees. Sarah and Karys both noticed that the process of doing their first data maturity assessment had caused a shift in how people thought about data in the organisation. They had used their initial learning to reframe how they talked about data, and made changes to how they used data. They didn’t necessarily have more data, but they were making better use of the data they did have. Consequently, people were seeing and talking about data in a more positive way and relating to it differently. Sarah says:
“One of the positives of doing a follow-up assessment was the increased level of enthusiasm we saw. People had a better understanding of what we were doing the second time around, because we had reported back on the first assessment and taken specific actions. The follow up, in itself, was a demonstration of the fact that we're using data in a planned and intelligent way - or hoping to do that - and people had a new appreciation of that.”
Reaching Mastery
One thing we know about data maturity is that it takes time and effort to implement changes and see results from all that focused work. Back in 2020, Orchestras Live was already relatively advanced in their data maturity compared to their peers. Their first assessment put them in the upper developing stage (scoring 3.7 out of 5 on the five-stage journey). Three years on, Orchestras Live is a fantastic example of how a concerted effort on data can pay off in time.
Very few of the nonprofits using our Data Maturity Assessment Tool are assessed as reaching Mastering level. In particular, organisations in the culture and recreation sub sector tend to lag behind others, with an average overall data maturity score of 2.4 out of 5, according to our latest State of the Sector analysis.
Orchestras Live bucked both these trends in their second data maturity assessment. Their overall data maturity score was 4 out of 5 - placing them just within Mastering level, and well above other culture and recreation organisations.
Comparison between 2020 and 2023 showed that Orchestras Live saw improvements in all seven key themes of our data maturity framework.
In particular, the organisation is excelling when it comes to Leadership, Uses and Culture, with Data and Analysis also showing great progress over the three years.
Seeing the benefits
Orchestras Live has also seen demonstrable increases in the benefits and rewards of better data maturity. Overall, data and analytics is influencing services much more than before, with the top three areas of improvement showing increases of 14-25 in percentage of influence:
Evidencing impact to stakeholders
Design and delivery of services and products
Targeting of services/interventions to clients
In particular, ‘design and delivery of services and products’ was one of the areas Orchestras Live least used data for in 2020. Now it is joint second.
Data is also increasingly influencing Orchestras Live’s core capabilities. The top three areas of benefit in 2023 showed increases of 11-23 in the percentage of influence of data and analytics on:
Strategic planning and decision-making
Levels of knowledge and expertise
Strength of partnerships/networks
Notably, influence on efficiency savings has also increased considerably (up from 22% to 60% over the three years).
The key to success
Orchestras Live is an organisation that's always known where it's going and how it's going to measure its success. Among the reasons they score so highly in leadership is that all their staff know there’s an overarching business plan with defined measurable goals, and understand that data and analytics is a major organisational priority. In particular, their ongoing investment in people, skills, learning and tools has clearly paid off in helping them reach a level of data maturity that not many organisations do.
The work never stops
The work to improve data maturity never stops - it just gets more rewarding.
Orchestras Live is a particularly interesting case study for data maturity because it’s one of only a few organisations where ALL the staff have participated in BOTH assessments (actually most of the trustees took part in the latest one too, but we’ve focused on the responses from staff, as they are closer to the day-to-day operations and better placed to assess first hand).
Given staff salaries are often the highest area of expenditure in many organisations, we’re keen to understand how much of people’s work relates to data. For Orchestras Live, in 2020 the results showed an average of 38% of staff time was spent working with data. In 2023, it had increased to 41%. So only a little more time spent overall, but delivered with much greater efficiency and effectiveness, and they are already reaping the rewards!
Of course though, the work continues. Orchestras Live used their first data maturity assessment to inform a new data strategy, which then fed into business planning. Now it’s time to rinse and repeat, as Sarah and Karys prepare to use the results of the second data maturity assessment to develop a new impact and insight strategy (an updated version of their data strategy), which will, in turn, feed into delivering their business plan in 2024/25. Some key areas they plan to focus on include:
Data management and data protection - A theme that emerged from our last State of the Sector analysis is that many organisations are seeing their confidence in data security, policies and practices decrease. Orchestras Live is aware of the risks and will continue to invest in good data management, security and protection.
Predictive analysis - Orchestras Live want to take their data use to the next level, by using data to predict need, increase efficiencies and assess potential return.
Sharing more data - Orchestras Live want to improve their sharing of data, particularly internally, for instance by allowing staff to ‘self-serve’ data.
Data visualisation - As data becomes richer and more complex, it becomes more challenging to present. The team wants to improve their ability to effectively present large amounts of data in accessible ways.
Our final thoughts
“Orchestras Live is a perfect example of a small but mighty charity that really understands how to use data to shape and change what it does and how to do it in the best possible way. That their board of trustees is so engaged and supportive of investment in data is undoubtedly a key driver. We look forward to seeing the next chapter in their story when they take another data maturity assessment in 2026!”
Sian Basker, Co CEO, Data Orchard.