Online Workshop: Taming the Data Monster

Nonprofits have many reasons to use available data sources along with data they're collecting to better demonstrate their work. The question is: how do you cut through the noise to talk about your cause?

Why, you register for "Taming the Data Monster," of course!

Nonprofits need to take huge amounts of information and create ways for a population already overloaded with data to understand their story. How can nonprofits display the data they collect in a useful way to further their missions and causes?

Join NTEN for a unique online event to learn and discuss the way data affects your nonprofit and what resources & tools are available to visualize your data in powerful ways to tell your nonprofit's story.

Lucy Bernholz will open the event with a plenary, Data are the New Platform for Change.

Forum One's Kurt Voelker will lead a breakout session on Data & Storytelling at 11:10 a.m. to 12:10 p.m., PDT. Kurt's session will illustrate how data may be used to create a story that supports your work and makes it more accessible to your supporters.

Breakout Sessions:

After the plenary, we'll then dive into your choice of 3 breakout sessions:

• Capturing Metrics to Measure Your Mission:  Introduction to Data Analysis: How can you use software to help you gather the information to assess the health and progress of your organization?  We'll talk through what metrics are possible to gather from commonly used types of software and discuss a framework to help you analyze what's likely to be useful to you. Presented by Laura Quinn, Idealware.
• Storytelling & Data: Data is so much more than a stack of numbers or a server filled with client outputs.  It can justify the work that your nonprofit is doing, help explain why it is critical, and even offer exciting new ways to motivate others to help solve the problems your organization is working on. This information needs to be understandable and shareable. Data can be shaped into a story that supports your work and makes it more accessible to your supporters. Presented by Kurt Voelker, Forum One Communications.
• Creating Dashboards: An organization's dashboard is one of its most important internal communications tools, giving you a birds-eye view of your organizations overall progress. But an organization's dashboard is so much more than exporting a few PDFs and spreadsheets from your analytics and CRM programs. It's about organizing your data in a way to communicate where you have been, what you are doing, and most importantly what you need to do to move forward. We'll talk about determining what should be on your dashboard (the answer may surprise you), how to present the data for the dashboard in a clear and concise manner, and how to make less onerous the task of gathering data. Presented by:

Agenda (Pacific Time):

10:00 - 10:45 AM - Opening Plenary: 45 minutes
10:45 - 11:00 AM - Q&A & Backchannel: 15 minutes
11:00 - 11:10 AM - Break: 10 minutes
11:10 - 12:10 PM - Breakout Sessions (choose one): 60 minutes
12:10 - 12:30 PM - Final Q&A: 20 minutes

Speakers:

Kurt Voelker, Forum One Communications
Lucy Bernholz, Blueprint Research & Design
Marissa Goldsmith, Beaconfire Consulting
Laura Quinn, Idealware