flickr photo: Unlisted SightingsYou know how a good relationship works, right? You have to give as good as you get. More precisely, you have to give 5 times more good than bad.

Now, I don't want to offend you, but I've seen how you treat your data. It's feast or famine. You ignore it until you need something from it, then throw it a cheap spreadsheet, change the font, add a border, and make it sit in a report for people to stare at.

Your data deserves better.

We, as nonprofit leaders, have problems to solve. Big problems. And good data management can help us solve those problems more effectively by allowing us to make better business decisions, collaborate more effectively, and engage the public and our clients in solving the problem, too.

Let's figure out how to treat our data right, so we both get something out of the relationship.

Step One: Let the Right One(s) In.

One of the common complaints we hear about managing data is that there's simply too much of it. They (whoever "they" are), were spot-on when they named this the Information Age. There's a ton of data for you to consider -- so we understand those overwhelmed feelings you might have. 

We're tracking open rates, web site hits, blog comments, people served, high-dollar donations, staff productivity, and thousands of other things across our organizations.

Let's take a step back, and ask one simple question: "Why?"

Why are you tracking all those things? Do those numbers tell you anything you NEED to know, or are they vanity metrics (those numbers we LIKE to track because we think they make us look good)?

If you feel overwhelmed by data, the solution is simple: track only what you NEED to know, and let go of the rest. You don't have to keep track of everything.

Step 2: Ask the Right Questions

Step one begs the question: How do you know what you need to know? The key is to remember that data, in and of itself, is not useful. Data becomes useful only when it's applied to problem solving.

That's where you start. What problems do you need to solve at your organization?

• Are you having trouble getting people to read your emails?
• Are potential clients dropping out of the intake system before you can serve them?
• Is it difficult to get your first time donors to give again?

You probably have too many questions you want to answer at your organization. Choose to answer the questions and focus on the data that aligns most closely with your strategic and operations plans.  

Step 3: Define Your Data Needs

Now that you know what you need to know, you can find the data. Let's take the scenario of first-time donors who aren't making second gifts. Let's say your development staff shows you something like this:

• 782 first time donors in 2009
• 129 have donated again in 2010
• 16% retention rate 

Clearly a problem, right? What would be helpful in understanding how to solve this problem?

• Donor demographic information
• What channel (direct mail, email, social media) the gift came through
• Dates of gifts
• Amount of gifts
• Purpose of gifts

These are the types of data that, when combined, might help you get a clearer picture of what's happening.

Let's say, for example, that you find that the majority of those initial gifts came in the first week of July. You'd be able to stop and ask yourself, "What happened in July to spur all those donations?" Answering that question might help you better understand those donors' motivations, so that you can tweak your messaging accordingly and bring in that second gift. 

Step 4: Find More Data

Sometimes we have all the data we need to answer our questions right in our own organizations. It can be difficult to extract it from time to time, but it's usually sitting in the databases and spreadsheets we use every day.

Other times, our understanding of the problems we need to solve can be greatly enhanced by using other data sets.

Let's say, for example, that you need to understand if your low-income housing counseling services are meeting the demand in your San Francisco neighborhood. If you were tackling this question with just your own data, you might see something like:

• 3,467 contact initiations (number of people who called with service requests)
• 3,148 counseling sessions
• 2,924 placements

That looks pretty good. You're serving 90% of the people who call, and placing 92% of the people you meet with. Funders are going to eat those stats up!

But what if you went to a site like The National Data Catalog or The Data Place and found out that there were 10,250 families in your community that qualify for housing assistance? You could really make a case for more funding then, couldn't you?

Step 5: Make it Pretty

Promise me one thing: No More Tables. I don't want to see another annual report or marketing brochure or fundraising appeal with data tables like this:

Instead, I want to see this:

Okay, maybe I don't want to see exactly that graphic. (I made it, and I'm no graphic designer.) But you get my point.

Show the story behind the numbers, not the numbers themselves. 

In this case, what matters is that the organization is saving MORE birds. How many is less important. A data visualization like this can help us tell better stories about the work that we do -- stories that tables can't tell.

Check out David McCandless talking about the importance of design when it comes to numbers.

Step 6: Share.

Data is a pack animal, not the proverbial "lone wolf." When you've got good data, make sure you share it with the people in your department, and across the organization. I bet your data finds will inspire great thinking from others in your organizations, and that the data they've been tracking will mingle nicely with yours and help you tell all new stories.

And that sounds like a great relationship to me.