data

Fighting Poverty With Big Data: A New Tool for Nonprofits and Their Funders

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By David Jeffrey, National Commander of The Salvation Army

Poverty is one of the trickiest social issues to define, understand, and alleviate because of its complexity: it affects many aspects of life in a uniquely vicious cycle. But only when it is properly defined and understood can effective action be considered. Nonprofits need to deeply understand the issues they are working to solve; just as important, their funders need reliable tools for smart decision-making and accountability.

The Human Needs Index (HNI) is such a tool. Created by The Salvation Army in partnership with the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the HNI uses a wealth of service data to provide a new, in-depth look at need in the United States.

Active in every zip code, The Salvation Army is the largest nonprofit provider of social services, meeting basic human needs across the United States. Each year, approximately 30 million people are assisted through myriad local programs in more than 7,600 facilities nationwide.

As part of our donor stewardship, we have closely tracked and measured our services from the start, producing a treasure trove of data that the HNI now leverages.

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New Report Details How Foundations Create Change

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By Henry Berman, Exponent Philanthropy

Small-staffed foundations are using a variety of strategies to make their grant dollars go further, according to Exponent Philanthropy’s 2016 Foundation Operations and Management Report, released today.

Join Exponent Philanthropy for access to this member benefit or order your copy >>

Exponent Philanthropy members are a powerful force for change, and many are achieving outsized impact, the result of strategies that allow each dollar granted to result in more than a single dollar’s worth of impact.

Among its 60-plus pages of data on grantmaking, governance, investments, and administration, the new report identifies seven strategies that lead to outsized impact among member foundations. Ranked by the percentage of members that engage in them, they include:

  1. Making general operating support grants: 80%
  2. Making multiyear grants: 68%
  3. Using information received from grantees to inform grantmaking: 64%
  4. Collaborating with other funders to increase impact: 61%
  5. Making capacity-building grants: 58%
  6. Convening grantees or organizations: 37%
  7. Making grants for advocacy work: 28%

Some 85% of Exponent Philanthropy member foundations engage in two or more of these strategies to help them achieve outsized impact.

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The Pulse: Economic Hardship, Courage to Adjust Course

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By Andy Carroll, Exponent Philanthropy

I regularly explore trends influencing philanthropy by spotlighting articles, reports, and essays in the media. I cast a wide net, venturing beyond philanthropy and traditional topics to consider a variety of ideas, innovations, debates, and critiques. Read previous posts in the series   

Working Americans Struggle to Earn a Living

Recent articles spotlight continuing economic hardship faced by millions of working Americans, including nonprofit employees, and the forces responsible. Key trends include the high cost of housing and health care, low wages, and lack of income growth in recent decades. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, median income for working-age households (headed by someone under age 65) slid 12.4% from 2000 to 2011, to $55,640.

I highlight two articles:

  • The San Francisco Chronicle profiles the impact on nonprofits of steep increases in the city’s real estate costs, which makes rents difficult to afford for employees and their organizations. The squeeze has fueled demonstrations by nonprofits and their supporters at City Hall and City Council meetings. Protesters point out that the mayor’s proposed increase in allocations for nonprofits is less than the increase for city workers, and call upon the city, which relies on nonprofits to deliver crucial human services, to increase its allocations. Journalist Marisa Lagos writes, “…nonprofits and their workers have seen little increase in the amount of money they get from the city—just 5% since 2007. From 2007 to 2012, there were no increases, and many have had to cut staff or services to stay solvent.” One nonprofit that offers housing, counseling, and other services to people with chronic mental health problems has seen rent hikes as high as 135% at some of its buildings.
  • The New York Times highlights a newer challenge for American workers–businesses’ use of computer scheduling models to increase staffing efficiency and reduce labor costs. The computer models disrupt regular work schedules, making it more difficult for parents to align work with their children’s daycare and school schedules. Journalist Jodi Kantor follows Jannette Navarro, a single mother in San Diego who struggles to support herself and her 4-year son on a $9-an-hour job. Ms. Navarro’s work schedule is cut into continually changing, irregular slices, forcing her to improvise her son’s daily care, and preventing her progress toward an associate degree in business. Writes Kantor, “Like increasing numbers of low-income mothers and fathers, Ms. Navarro is at the center of a new collision that pits sophisticated workplace technology against some fundamental requirements of parenting, with particularly harsh consequences for poor single mothers.”

A Nonprofit Shares Its Data and Improves Its Field

Continual innovation in technology offers new opportunities for funders and nonprofits to use data to make smart decisions. As thought leaders like Lucy Bernholz have pointed out, one promising use of data is for nonprofits and foundations to share their evaluation and research data publicly to increase effectiveness for all.

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Program Notes: Data, Data, Data

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By Lauren Kotkin, Exponent Philanthropy

Three recent Exponent Philanthropy programs surfaced some great takeaways. Check out our Educational Programs calendar for upcoming in-person programs, conference calls, live Q&A chats, and webinars.

Some say 2012 was a breakout year for the term big data, a blanket descriptor for the vast and growing amounts of available data, both structured and otherwise, from traditional and new sources.

Data played a role at our recent programs.  

On April 23, Mark Larimer of Foundant Technologies addressed big data in the nonprofit sector: the nonprofit data available on the Internet and ways grantmakers can access it, increase its accuracy, and use it in grantmaking decisions.

Mark offered four suggestions to funders:

  1. Encourage your nonprofit grantees to create or keep current their GuideStar Exchange profile.
  2. Streamline your grantmaking practices by using the GuideStar Exchange data to learn about grantees.
  3. Become a Foundation Center eGrant reporter by reporting your giving data. You’ll receive reports and visuals about your grantmaking, which can help you make future decisions and offer potential grantees more information about your giving patterns.
  4. Use the feedback website GreatNonprofits to share your experiences with nonprofits. Your words could encourage others to give to great causes.

Read Mark’s take on the growing influence of data in the nonprofit sector.

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How to Make Big Data Relevant and Useful

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By Mark Larimer, Foundant Technologies

Many common themes in philanthropy today revolve around the promises of “Big Data.” Grantmakers are continually called upon to be more transparent and to share their data, but many have become cynical as past data projects failed more than a few times due to incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated data. A misunderstanding regarding how their data will be used has also contributed to the wariness many grantmakers have regarding sharing data.

We believe three critical requirements have been missing among failed data initiatives: first, a reliable and distinct benefit for those who share data, and an understanding of how it can and will be used; second, an easy way to share data; and third, data that is up-to-date and accurate.

Grants management solutions have a unique and important role to play in helping data initiatives succeed.

  • By allowing grantseeking organizations to regularly use and update their data during their normal grant cycle, inaccurate or outdated data is eliminated.

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8 Sources of Data to Inform Your Giving

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By Akilah Massey, Exponent Philanthropy

Data has found its place in philanthropy as two important trends converge: a movement toward impact, and a surge of digital information from government, regulatory, and nonprofit organizations.

Exponent Philanthropy member Fran Sykes and fellow trustees of The Pascale Sykes Foundation use a mix of state data on school achievement and information from other government agencies to set the foundation’s funding priorities. She notes, “Every state has KIDS COUNT®. Every state has stats from its departments of labor, employment, corrections. Every state has stats on public school academic achievement. All are matters of public record and can be used to determine needs.”

And she is right: Public data is available from a variety of sources. And many more organizations are compiling, analyzing, and making data useful for donors and others.

Where can you find data to inform your giving? Here are 8 places to turn:

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Just Released: Small-Staff Foundation Benchmarks

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By Henry Berman, ASF

survey report cover

Last week at ASF, we released the results of our biennial survey of member foundations, the 2013 Foundation Operations and Management Report.

For more than a decade, the Foundation Operations and Management Report has been a powerful tool for foundations, advisors, researchers, policymakers, and media—telling a story of small-staff philanthropy that is lean, agile, responsive, passionate, and personal.

Based on responses from 762 ASF member foundations, this year’s report provides critical data about how small-staff foundations operate and the important impact they have on communities around the world. The 54-page report covers administration, investments, governance, and grantmaking among ASF members.

Here are a few highlights: Continue reading →

The Challenge of Measuring What Matters Most

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By Ken Berger, Charity Navigator

Four years ago when I began working at Charity Navigator, I went on a “listening tour” to see what concerned experts in the field about our rating system. The fundamental concern expressed by many was that we were not factoring in what matters most: the results (especially outcomes) of the work of the charities we analyze. That feedback, among other things, led us to make a commitment to upgrade our rating system over time in the direction they had counseled.

After a few years of research, funded by one large and a number of small foundations, we came to the conclusion that there is a fundamental problem with the experts’ suggestion. Essentially, for the vast majority of charitable causes, there is no publically available information on results. In other words, most charities either do not currently compile such information or if they do, they are unwilling to share it publically.

The traditional nonprofit culture is to not make waves (unless you are an advocacy organization) and keep a low profile. Nonprofits don’t want to give stakeholders any reason to weaken their trust in them. Nor do they want to give competitors any leg up by learning sensitive information about the vulnerabilities of internal operations. Therefore, the increasing emphasis on transparency about performance is resisted by many.

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Foundation Salary and Benefits Data Prompts Conversation

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By Kathryn Petrillo-Smith, ASF

Today ASF releases its 2012 Foundation Salary and Benefits Report. Every year, this is one of our most popular reports. Why? For a couple reasons: some obvious and some, perhaps, not so obvious.

First, the obvious. For foundations with few or no staff and/or $200 million or less in assets, it is the best source of readily available benchmarking data. With comparisons by asset size of <$1 million, $1-4.9 million, 5-9.9 million, 10-24.9 million, 25-49.4 million, and 50 million and up, the data is tailored for smaller foundations. Add in geographic breakouts and data at a range of percentiles, and a foundation leader can develop a compensation benchmark that is powerful and relevant.

Second, the not so obvious. The real power behind the data is the conversations the data can prompt between trustees and staff. Use this as an opportunity to discuss not just what benchmarks you have selected but how you came to select them. For example:

  • What are your foundation’s executive director’s responsibilities and priorities over the coming year?
  • Are they changing or continuing on a steady course?
  • Is he or she being asked to take on a new project or initiative?
  • Is your foundation’s grantmaking more complicated than the average foundation? 

Using the data as a starting point can be an effective way to begin what can be difficult and often very personal conversations. But, these conversations can also be incredibly powerful – helping everyone to align their expectations for the coming year and creating a shared understanding of desired outcomes. 

How does your foundation use salary and benefits data? What conversations has data helped you to start?

ASF’s Foundation Salary and Benefits Report is released each year in late spring. ASF members can download the report for free. Non-members can purchase the report as a supplement to the 2011 Foundation Operations and Management Report. The 2012 Foundation Salary and Benefits report was made possible, in part, by the support of U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management.

Kathryn Petrillo-Smith

Kathryn Petrillo-Smith is ASF’s Managing Director. In this role, Kathryn is a member of ASF’s senior leadership team and works to align ASF’s operations with its strategy. Kathryn oversees ASF’s Member Services, Membership, Marketing & Communications, and Operations teams and its financial management.

Using Data to Inform Donor Decisions: Reflections from GuideStar President

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By Henry Berman, Exponent Philanthropy

How does your foundation decide which organizations to fund?

“I think increasingly our decisions are going to focus on capabilities,” said Bob Ottenhoff, president of GuideStar, in Exponent Philanthropy’s newest podcast Reflections: 10 Years in the Nonprofit Sector.

Do you agree? Disagree?

Bob went on to comment on how donors might inquire about nonprofit capabilities:

“Are you really capable, nonprofit organization, of doing what you say you want to do? Because I, as a donor, have certain expectations and…  I really want to make an impact on this cause, and so I’m looking for partners, nonprofit partners, who can help me make a difference in this area. And so I want to make sure that if you’re going to be my partner, nonprofit organization, you can really deliver.”

So that means learning a little bit more about the board, learning a little bit more about the management expertise, learning about the programs of the organization, learning about how they’re doing. How are they doing in achieving those goals?

Download the free podcast from the Exponent Philanthropy Store. You’ll also find a two-part conversation with Tom Tierney, co-author with Joel Fleishman of Give Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results.

Take a listen. Let us hear what you think.

Henry Berman

Henry Berman became Exponent Philanthropy’s CEO in 2011, previously serving as acting CEO, board member, and committee member. Through his experience as a foundation co-trustee and Exponent Philanthropy member since 2003, he brings a firsthand understanding of the needs of Exponent Philanthropy members to his role. Berman’s early career included positions as an independent communications consultant and director, writer, and producer of film, video, and multimedia programs for education, motivation, and fundraising.