Discussing the State of the Sector: Data maturity in the Nonprofit Sector 2023
Discussing State of the Sector: Data Maturity in the Nonprofit Sector 2023
This September we resumed our Nonprofit Datafolk Club, after a brief summer break. For those who don’t know, our Nonprofit Datafolk Club (usually) gathers online on the second Thursday of every month. It’s a rare occasion for people with varied data roles and experiences to get together in a relaxed, interactive forum to chat and share experiences of data in nonprofits.
In September, we were discussing our report ‘State of the Sector: Data maturity in the nonprofit sector 2023’ that was launched in July. In the session, people had a chance to discuss the findings from the report, pose questions to Sian Basker (Co-CEO and lead researcher), and reflect on any hunches, ideas or curiosities the research sparked.
What questions were asked?
In the Q&A section of the workshop, several questions were posed to Sian. I have summarised some of the main points here:
Is there any explanation for why different sectors are ahead or lagging behind in their data maturity scores?
It is difficult to know why some sectors score better than others in data maturity. A higher score can be pushed by having good data governance (several questions in the ‘culture’, ‘tools’ ‘data’ and ‘skills’ themes are around security and data protection practices) - which may contribute to the public sector being the highest scoring sector. As highly regulated organisations, they often commit relatively high levels of resources to legal compliance and security.
When looking at subsectors, organisations that operate in activities of research, umbrella bodies and law/advocacy tend to score higher. To some extent this is to be expected as their ‘business’ is inherently about data and they are directly reliant upon good data and data skills.
Is the data maturity assessment "skewed" to organisations in the development stages? For example if their data maturity is very high they don’t bother taking one, and if it is very low and they are not open/aware of data maturity.
This could well be the case, we are aware the sample is self-selecting. Certainly organisations that value and prioritise data are more likely to want to take an assessment to understand how they can improve. By contrast organisations that don’t care about data and aren’t interested in getting better, are VERY unlikely to invest time in taking a data maturity assessment. However we do see organisations at all five stages of data maturity across the seven themes.
I’m curious to see how organisations’ data maturity has evolved over time (for organisations that have taken the assessment multiple times).
This is something that we also have been curious about. We have had a number of organisations take repeat assessments - we’ve been tracking one charity that completed its first baseline assessment in 2018 and has re-assessed every year since. What we have found out is that it is not a linear journey, sometimes scores drop before they rise again (this could be due to staff realising ‘what’s possible’ with data). One surprising finding was that we expected organisations to spend less time with data as they became more data mature. In fact, we are actually seeing staff spend a bit more time on data - though they also reap many more rewards! This is an area we are particularly keen to do further research on, and is looking like it could be the focus of the next State of the Sector report. So keep an eye out for that.
Scotland is leading the way in data maturity - do you have any idea why that is?
Scotland is certainly championing data and is among those at the forefront of innovation in this area. Back in 2018, Scottish Government made a clear commitment to digital and data; investing in research and development, in education and in business start-ups. There are some great initiatives coming out of Scotland’s universities - in fintech, data science and AI, and of course they have The Data Lab, and a lot happening with data-driven services and health and welfare data. We’ve worked with Scottish Government’s data maturity programme since 2021 to support cohorts of public sector organisations on their journeys and will be starting with new cohorts this autumn. All this awareness and investment seems to be having really positive effects for nonprofit data in Scotland.
What else was discussed
Other more general ideas relating to the report that I think are interesting to note were:
One attendee realised, after reading the report, their organisation is not as behind as they initially thought, believing other charities would be using data in much more advanced ways than they are. They went on to reflect that many charities at least use a CRM and there are now some products which are free for nonprofits. This can help improve data maturity as they have to be GDPR compliant and have inbuilt ability to link data.
Another attendee had logged in from Germany and gave some really great insight into how the results compared to their own experience with nonprofit data. They found it interesting that Tools was the second highest scoring theme, as they said many organisations in Germany still use Excel, especially in smaller nonprofits. They also noted that administration in Germany is still largely paper-based, and the level of GDPR compliance varies. They agreed that evidencing impact is one of the first motivations to improve when in the Emerging/Learning stages.
Another topic of conversation was how to move small charities from paper based forms to more digital methods of collecting and storing data (as 31% of nonprofits say they still use paper questionnaires and forms moderately or extensively), and the challenges and opportunities that come from that. Relatedly, how to ensure charities understand and don’t feel excluded by “tech speak”. (By the way…data on paper is an issue across all sectors and for organisations of all sizes).
Finally, one group opened up the discussion of quantitative vs qualitative data in terms of how different skills may be required, and the uses of such data.
Looking forward, what do people still want to know?
We asked our datafolk to consider any opportunities for further research - any theories, ideas, hunches that we may be able to investigate. I have listed them below as they are really some food for thought:
Why a badly implemented CRM may set back an organisation, and why does a well implemented CRM propel an org forward?
What is the influence of regulated sectors on data maturity scores?
What is the relationship between digital and data maturity?
What is the journey of those organisations that have improved their data maturity?
What works, what doesn’t, what causes some organisations to stay stagnant or regress in their data maturity? Are these factors different for different types of organisations?
What is the relationship between voluntary sector / NHS / statutory organisations - how does this affect data maturity and skills (also, where there is a federated charity model)?
What is the relationship between qualitative data skills and the Uses theme?
What concerns should we have around the ethical issues of using digital and data tools to collect and analyse data (including AI)?
If you have any additional thoughts, reflections, or ideas for future research please do get in touch and let us know!
Join the Nonprofit Datafolk Club
If you found this resource interesting, or if you have any curiosity in nonprofit data more generally, please come and join us at our next workshop. Each month has a different topic, and you will be able to find the details on our events page.
Previous topics have included: