We are grateful for our nonprofit partners:

An in-depth look at a few of the organizations and communities our volunteers are helping.

Note: These projects are currently in progress and are no longer seeking volunteers.

10:12 Sports

Project Description:

MENTORING PARTICIPATION

Baltimore Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) -- Minor Definitive Care Now (MDCN)

Mobile Integrated Health's (MIH) Minor Definitive Care Now (MDCN) is a program that supports low acuity patients who call 911 for EMS evaluation and transport.

Currently, there are limitations in MDCN operations resulting in lower than desired enrollment volumes. Specifically, MDCN is only permitted to respond to 9-1-1 calls dispatched as low acuity (alpha or bravo) thru the 911 call center. There are potentially missing medically appropriate patients to evaluate and treat because of inaccurate information via the call center and/or dispatch acuity. If provider referrals are permitted, this will allow for any paramedic working within the 9-1-1 system to refer patients directly to MDCN for evaluation and treatment, regardless of dispatch acuity. This will increase the number of patients able to be evaluated and treated by MDCN. One major question for this research project is: How would provider referrals impact MDCN?

 

Additional research questions for this project pertain to the MDCN vehicle. Currently, this vehicle drives around the catchment area. Is there an optimal location for where the MDCN vehicle should be stationed? At what point of geographical expansion would MDCN require a second vehicle?

Baltimore Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) -- Transitional Health Support (THS)

Mobile Integrated Health's (MIH) Transitional Health Support (THS) is designed to help patients with multiple social, environmental, and healthcare challenges to improve the successful transition from hospital to home.

The desired goal is to initiate a study of the following research questions for THS operations:

• How often should THS providers see patients over 30 days and at what interval?
• What is the impact of expanding THS program operations from 5 to 7 days versus going to 10-hour days?
• What THS field team schedule maximizes patient contact?
• What THS enrollment strategies are optimal?
• How can the THS operations center current operational construct be optimized
• What resources are required to expand the program to an additional zip code (21215)?

Data are currently scarce and the research questions are interconnected with potentially conflicting objectives. Hence, for this initial project, the specific goal is twofold:

1. To gain an understanding of THS performance metrics pertaining to the research questions and how the potential decision variables are connected to these performance metrics
2. To identify relevant and potentially available data to support the optimization of decisions

Liberty Science Center

Project Title - Museum Walk-Up Attendance Forecasting

Project Description:

The desired goal is to forecast walk-up museum attendance on three time scales:

• 10-day for tactical decisions like levels of food ordering for the cafeteria,
• 30-day time horizon for improving planning, such as staffing levels,
• 18-month time-frame for annual budgeting.

Current forecasts are annual. Accurate forecasting over shorter time-frames would benefit planning at the various time scales. LSC has created a proof-of-concept forecasting model using a number of features, including past sales trends, local weather, public and academic holiday calendars, and regional economic indicators, like household prices. LSC would like to assistance from a Pro Bono Analytics volunteer to build a next level forecasting model and begin testing it in operational use. We are open to collecting additional features and alternate modeling approaches. The current model was built using Dataiku’s Data Science Studio (https://www.dataiku.com/). In this environment, it is also possible to operationalize Python and R code, both inside and outside Jupyter Notebooks.

Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts (TBBCA)

 

Project Description:

TBBCA is working to incorporate more analytics into their operations and decision-making processes. To advance this effort, TBBCA would like to engage with a Pro Bono Analytics volunteer to better understand their donor base. The specifics of the project will be determined by representatives from TBBCA and the Pro Bono Analytics volunteer, but will likely include:

1. Helping to organize the donor database
2. Developing a dashboard that will monitor key metrics. Potential metrics include:
   • Donor retention rates, number of times they donate
   • Average length of time a donor gives to TBBCA and the average amount
   • Corporate vs. individual donations
   • Geographical breakdown of donors by location and other available data
   • Spikes in donations after events or marketing campaigns
3. Providing the ability to generate pre-formatted and ad hoc reports from the data

TBBCA may be interested in pursing additional projects with the same or different Pro Bono Analytics volunteers, especially in the area of program impact measurement. Therefore, another part of this current effort is to consider the best data structures and software tools to support future projects.

A volunteer at TBBCA is currently pursuing an analytics degree and will be a participant in this project. She brings to the project a good understanding of the TBBCA operations and data.

Zeeland Public Schools

Project Title: MAPT Electric School Bus Pilot Project

Project Description
Seven school districts – Ann Arbor, Gaylord Community, Kalamazoo Public, Oxford Community, Roseville, Three Rivers, and Zeeland Public – are deploying 17 all-electric school buses. All but Ann Arbor and Roseville received 11 electric school buses by December 18, 2019. Ann Arbor and Roseville will receive four E-buses and two E-buses, respectively. Two general questions need to be answered: 1) is the total cost of operation of an electric school bus greater than, equal to or less than that of a traditional fueled bus; and 2) is the environmental impact in and around an electric school bus less than that of a traditional fueled school bus.

This phase of the project will deal with determining the right questions to ask, the right data to collect, and mechanisms for collecting and storing data. Actual analysis will occur in a later phase.

Understanding our Differences is a nonprofit organization based in Newton, Massachusetts and a national leader in disability awareness education with a mission to educate communities to value and accept people of all abilities through school-based, interactive disability awareness programs.

100 Walnut Street | Newton, Massachusetts 02460
https://understandingourdifferences.org/

Project Summary:

Project Title - Program Evaluation: Changing Children's Attitudes About Disability

Project Description:  

Understanding Our Differences provides in-class programs to elementary school children to build respect for fellow students and others with physical, sensory or developmental disabilities and to reduce bullying, name-calling and intolerance.

UOD's half-day programs address Blindness and Low Vision, Deafness and Hard of Hearing, Autism, Physical Disabilities, Intellectual Disabilities, Learning Disabilities, and Chronic Medical Conditions including Allergic Conditions, Asthma, Diabetes, and Epilepsy. These programs feature people with personal experience with these conditions who speak with students, describe their life experiences and answer students’ questions.

Educational experts such as Dr. David A. Fleishman, Superintendent of Schools, Newton, MA, Jen Price, Head of School, Buckingham Browne & Nichols and parent volunteers have testified that Understanding Our Differences helps build inclusive schools and communities. In an era of increased intolerance and incivility, UOD knows that teaching our children to value others with different experiences, conditions and capacities can enable them to be better students and to make their schools better places.

However, Understanding Our Differences wants to go beyond testimonials to more precisely and carefully measure the impacts of its programming. By doing so, it can learn what aspects of its activities are most effective, and the environments and audiences where its programs are likely to have the greatest impact. 

Quantifying the effects and impacts of programs is an important activity for nonprofit organizations, and it is especially challenging in this case to conduct program evaluation with young children. UOD seeks to develop a methodology for measuring and analyzing the efficacy of its educational content and programming on attitudes and values.  Data could be collected from students, classroom teachers, UOD adult volunteers and school administrators through surveys, interviews and focus groups, in-person observations and administrative records. The overall goal is to design an ongoing data gathering and analysis process using both qualitative and quantitative data that will inform program design and demonstrate impact on the understanding of disabilities and related social behaviors of elementary school students.

Chicago State University

The senior administration team is focused on addressing challenges and acting with urgency on opportunities affect enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. Part of this focus is to utilize a data-driven, evidence-based approach to better inform policy decisions. Chicago State University (CSU) seeks Pro Bono Analytics support to conduct a review of the CSU’s academic and support programs for students, including examination of student outcomes disaggregated by race, sex, income, and other factors.  Ideally, such analysis would also include support creating a process that could be used by CSU in the future, and in creating data visualizations of the analysis to make the data accessible and understandable to internal and external audiences.

The goal is to use the results of this analysis to help transform student outcomes at CSU by:

-- identifying any hidden access or outcome gaps by race, sex, income, and other factors;
-- increasing our understanding of – and testing our assumptions about – challenges and risk factors facing CSU students;
-- facilitating problem-solving to address identified challenges to achieve dramatic gains in success outcomes for all students; and
-- launching a campus-wide improvement effort grounded in data and focused on increasing student success rates.

In addition to enhancing administrator, faculty, and staff understanding of student challenges and successes at CSU as described above, the data analysis and visualizations would also support CSU’s critical fundraising goals by helping CSU tell the story of its students and their successes and challenges to potential donors.

FLO - Friendly Loving Opportunities

FLO provides food, clothing, and supplies for people experiencing hardship. Through its weekly outreach and planned special events, FLO works to inspire men, women and children in need while connecting the most vulnerable in Baltimore to vital resources. Aligned to its mission, FLO strives to instill hope and help those in need transform their lives.

Project: Assessing Program Outcomes

FLO has accumulated participation data over a span of at least three years from their various programs and activities. Their primary need is for guidance on how to generate estimates of the impact of their activities on the wellbeing of the people they serve. This might involve analysis of their existing data, searches for publicly accessible supplementary data, and/or recommendations for additional data to collect (and how to collect it). Also, FLO management would appreciate any suggestions on better ways to store and utilize the data they have.

Boston Public Schools - Improved Scheduling of Speech Language Pathologists for the Boston Public Schools

Boston Public Schools (BPS) serves 54,000 students across 125 schools. Over 5000 of these students have a speech disability and receive support from approximately 150 speech language pathologists (SLPs). The students receive instructional support in either a group setting or one-on-one throughout the year.  The SLPs will see students at different schools throughout the week, and sometimes must visit multiple schools on the same day.

The BPS would like to have a tool for developing better schedules to improve SLP utilization. This PDF contains a more complete description of the problem, including the objective, constraints and available data. At a high-level, we are looking for a Pro Bono Analytics (PBA) volunteer (or team of volunteers), who will:

1. Design a model that will assist with the schedules and assignments of 150 SLPs to the ~5,000 students in BPS who have a speech disability
2. Develop the model, which can be used by BPS to: 
   • Generate SLP schedules that meet the needs of the students, improves SLP utilization, and complies with SLP work rules
   • Quantify the benefits of the schedules (i.e., utilization improvements)
   • Test the overall feasibility of different SLP staffing scenarios
   • Identify any shortcomings or issues with the model, and suggest future improvements
3. To make this project more suitable for a PBA volunteer effort, it will be a stand-alone tool that does not integrate with other software, nor will it need to process the input data. The BPS representative and the PBA volunteer will agree on a common fixed format for inputs and outputs, perhaps in a CSV, Excel, or Google Docs format.
4. Please note that BPS is looking for a tool that will allow them to make operational decisions, but not a state-of-the-art scheduling system. What is most important is that the model results are directionally accurate, meets the constraints, and can be implemented.

Boston Public Schools - Planning Extended School Year Program for Students with a Learning Disability for the Boston Public Schools

Boston Public Schools (BPS) serves 54,000 students across 125 schools. Approximately 3000 of these students have a learning disability and are placed in an extend school year (ESY) program where they work with teachers in a classroom setting. Operating ESY presents several complex problems, including identifying the best subset of schools to use for ESY, identifying the best start times and assigning students to the schools.

The BPS would like to have a tool to help plan ESY so that it maximizes the number of students participating while minimizing the costs.  Other considerations include reducing student travel times and keeping as many students in their home school as possible. This PDF contains a more complete description of the problem, including the objective, constraints and available data. At a high-level, we are looking for a Pro Bono Analytics (PBA) volunteer (or team of volunteers), who will:

1. Design a model that will assist with placing approximately 3000 students with learning disabilities into ESY programs.  This involves:
   • Identifying a subset of BPS schools for use in the ESY program
   • Assigning each of the 3000 students to one of the ESY sites based on a series of rules, being mindful of the time and distance each student must travel
   • Assign each ESY site a specific start time
   • Minimize the overall costs
2. Develop a model that can be used by BPS. The intent is to run the model once a year, in time to plan for the ESY summer program
3. Work with BPS to identify any shortcomings or issues with the model, and suggest future improvements
4. To make this project more suitable for a PBA volunteer effort, it will be a stand-alone tool that does not integrate with other software, nor will it need to process the input data. The BPS representative and the PBA volunteer will agree on a common fixed format for inputs and outputs, perhaps in a CSV, Excel, or Google Docs format.
5. Please note that BPS is looking for a tool that will allow them to make operational decisions, but not a state-of-the-art system. What is most important is that the model results are directionally accurate, meets the constraints, and can be implemented.

With 14 locations throughout the world, Asia Society is the leading educational organization promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among the peoples, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the West. Asia Society Texas Center executes the global mission with a local focus, enriching and engaging the vast diversity of Houston through innovative, relevant programs in arts and culture, business and policy, education, and community outreach.

Asia Society - Texas Center's development department is utilizing Raiser’s Edge (Blackbaud) to manage fundraising and managing guest services with Patron Manager (Salesforce). The data in each is similar but taken from different populations. Both products have APIs. Asia Society - Texas Center is looking for expert advice on how to integrate and consolidate their data systems and maximize the capacity of the data vehicles they are using.

The first possible plan involves the integration of data from the two systems into one (either Salesforce or Blackbaud, dropping the other). Consultants would help make the decision on which system to keep and how to integrate data from the other system. If this is not practical, the other option is to facilitate the migration of data from one system into the other with regular updates (scheduled data exchanges in one or both directions). Again, consultants would be expected to help decide which way the data would flow and how updates would be performed.

Mentoring Mentors, a Baltimore-area organization, employs an intergenerational team-based near-to-peer mentoring approach to help, guide, and inspire African-American youth to become mentors in their communities. They work with both young men and young women, using a combination of an African American professional, a high-school mentee, and middle-school mentees for young men and small group workshops with working professional women for school-aged young women. Mentoring Mentors is just beginning to explore the use of analytics. They are seeking help from one or more Pro Bono Analytics volunteers to construct an initial data acquisition and storage strategy. Questions to be answered include the following.

• How would the data be used? What are the desired results from analysis of the data?
• What data do they have, what data do they need to collect, and what data can/should they acquire from public sources?
• How should the data be stored?

Since it will likely take time to collect the needed data, analysis of the data will probably not be part of this project.

WombWork Productions’ mission is to heal and empower youth, families and communities through the performing arts. WombWorks works to achieve its mission not only through performing arts, but through provision of social and public health services as well. WombWork is now partnering with Kaiser Permanente to produce virtues-based classes, assemblies, and workshops at five Baltimore City Public Schools that have some of the lowest socioeconomic and health indicators in the Baltimore area.

WombWork has an excellent track record working in difficult school settings, as evidenced by many testimonials of impacts of their work on the lives of community members. They now want to tell a different story of their work, through quantitative as well as qualitative data that may support rigorous evaluations of their work, and thereby produce evidence that their impact is strong and positive, and potentially scalable, transferable and generalizable. They have asked INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics for help in doing so.

Collateral Repair Project is a grassroots effort to bring much-needed assistance to refugees and other victims of war and conflict—those commonly referred to as “collateral damage.” They seek to repair some of this damage and, through these efforts, foster peace and reconciliation. Analytics volunteers are helping to evaluate their data and process for best managing their nearly 2,000 refugee families. They are interested in the possibility for constructing a data warehouse system and improving their processes for efficiency.

I AM MENtality Youth Empowerment Project provides mentoring and leadership development opportunities for male youth, ages 7-18, in Baltimore City and surrounding counties. The organization offers at-risk youth support in leadership skills, conflict resolution, anger management, financial literacy, professionalism, health and wellness, effective public speaking, character building and other life skills. The program uses a variety of services -- individual and family counseling, peer-to-peer support groups and mentoring, and academic tutoring – to reach and help these boys. I AM MENtality is looking to Pro Bono Analytics volunteers for help in identifying, collecting and analyzing data to support its mission, in particular:

• Identifying and selecting outcome measures and models suitable for demonstrating the effectiveness of its programs.
• Determining any additional variables necessary for those models.
• Determining which, if any, data currently collected (as manual records) would be useful for documenting outcomes.
  
  

LET’S GO Boys and Girls is working to break the cycle of poverty through STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education and workforce development. Based in Baltimore, LET’S GO inspires and supports participation of low income/high risk students in activities that help them develop a STEM identity leading to improved academic achievement and career success in the 21^st Century information age.

LET’S GO tracks students from the time they register in one of their informal STEM education activities (typically in elementary school) though middle, high, and post-secondary school and ultimately entrance into the workforce. They are working with Pro Bono Analytics volunteers to improve their data base structure and to generate reports from the data. The goal is to enhance data collection and data storage, develop a system that grows as the organization grows, and generate reports that staff can use to help answer critical questions such as::

• Is there evidence that low income/high risk students’ participation and persistence in informal STEM education activities leads to improvement in students’ academic achievement and life skills?
• What is the necessary quality of STEM activities and dosage/duration of delivery of activities for low income/high risk students to develop a strong enough “STEM identity” that motivates students to improve their academic achievement and life skills putting them on a pathway to success to economic prosperity?
• Does participation and persistence in informal STEM activities lead to the desired end goal of low income/high risk youth breaking out of generational poverty?
  
  

Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI) celebrates Maryland’s industrial legacy and shows how innovation fuels ongoing progress. Their exhibitions, educational programs, and collections engage visitors in the stories of the people who built Baltimore and those who shape the region’s future. BMI is currently working to implement a new strategic plan which charts a bold course for the museum’s future, envisioning the BMI as a community anchor where pride in Baltimore’s industrial past fuels imagination and inspires innovation.

BMI currently tracks revenue and the number of people served by some of their programs, but there is clearly a richer set of metrics that can expand and improve the understanding of their impact on the community.

The Criminal Justice Innovation Lab at NYU School of Law is designing and building a mental health screening tool for police officers to identify and divert individuals suffering from mental illness out of the criminal justice system and into treatment. The Assessment Intervention Center (AIC) is a key component of the mental health diversion aspect of the criminal justice reform. Located in Indianapolis, the AIC is a choice for clients, it is not a mandatory treatment component, not a secured facility and clients can choose to leave at any time with an anticipated that lengths of stay will range from 1 to 14 days. It will operate during regular business hours with outpatient services that are rooted in an intensive case management model. The goal is stabilization and (re)connection to services in the community. Located in close proximity to the AIC will be an overnight facility for people are engaged in services who need a place to stay while they are being (re)connected to services. The AIC will be operated by Midtown Community Mental Health Center through Eskenazi Health (the public hospital system for Marion County) and will facilitate the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's mental health screening initiative. Pro Bono Analytics volunteers are working with AIC designers to improve the flow of people through the facility.

Nashville Zoo successfully utilized Pro Bono Analytics volunteers in the first phase of this effort to organize the data and develop critical reports. The second phase, currently underway, builds on Phase I by expanding access to the reports and data developed as part of that effort. 

A sampling of the nonprofit organizations our volunteers
have helped make better decisions with their data:
 

The American Alpine Club works to support a united community of competent climbers and healthy climbing landscapes. They focus on being inclusive and fostering diversity across climber demographics. They are a membership-based organization providing benefits and services to members, grants, historical preservation, education, policy and advocacy.

Project Summary:

Their State of Climbing report aggregates and analyzes data that reflects American climbing leading up to 2018, with particular attention paid to changing demographics.

The American Alpine Club utilized Pro Bono Analytics volunteers to advise their staff about the importance of statistically relevant data and their ability to make assertions and/or draw conclusions from the data they had and/or were able to find.

Houston Methodist Hospital (HMH) Volunteer Services Department is responsible for providing engaged, well trained and resourceful volunteers who produce exemplary and meaningful service and support while demonstrating ICARE values to their patients, guests and the hospital they serve. HMH worked with a Pro Bono Analytics volunteers to better understand how to interact with existing and potential volunteers in three primary areas:

• Engagement – The list of volunteers contains a mixture of (a) people regularly volunteering for specific assignments, (b) people volunteering only once or twice, and (c) people never volunteering for a specific assignment. There are cases where volunteers receive training yet never sign up for an event. What are the reasons behind different levels of engagement?
• Communication – HMH uses a variety of methods to advertise specific volunteering opportunities.  These include email, website postings, social media, etc. However HMH, currently does not utilize text messaging as an avenue for communication. How effective will text outreach be in communicating with volunteer? Which methods are most effective, and how does this differ by demographic?
• Branding – Although HMH is a well-known and respected organization, it still must compete with other international, national and local non-profits for volunteer time. What methods are most effective for encouraging volunteers to sign up?

CHECK OUT OUR WRITE-UP FOR THIS
AWARD-WINNING PROJECT: https://pubsonline.informs.org/do/10.1287/LYTX.2019.04.18n/full/

ARTS EVERY DAY (www.artseveryday.org) works with Baltimore City Public Schools and a network of arts organizations to improve equitable access to arts education. The organization was born out of the Ford Foundation’s Arts Integration and Education Reform Initiative in 2005 and officially became the non-profit Arts Every Day in 2007. Their goal is to encourage creativity in education through participation in the arts, and their strategic goal is for all students in Baltimore City Public Schools to participate in courses on visual arts and music.

Arts Every Day wanted Pro Bono Analytics volunteer help to develop an analysis of their available data and to assist in producing reports on the state of the arts in Baltimore City Public Schools. Our volunteers were able to create two reports: one report to review the status across all schools, and the other report generated for each school. These reports are open to the public, so that students, parents, and schools have an informed perspective on participation in the arts at the various public schools in the district.

Amanda Hope Rainbow Angels is an organization focused on bringing dignity and comfort into the harsh world of childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. They address the "here and now" of the whole family and support them throughout their battle with cancer. They provide fun t-shirts and clothing, teach families to have a voice, provide financial assistance to families, train health-care professionals to offer Family Centered Care, and provide behavioral health counseling to the patients and their families.

They wanted to be able to be able to communicate their data more effectively with grant funders, donors, stakeholders, and the community. Our volunteers were able to help identify goals to consolidate all of the organization data into a cloud data-warehouse, automate reporting, ensure accuracy, and eliminate data silos. Specifically, they:

• Developed the metrics that best convey the impact and value of the services they offer to grant funders, donors, stakeholders, and the community.
• Identified the data need to analyze and develop the metrics. Enhanced data currently being collected and identified what other data should be collected and how.
• Developed surveys and procedures to collect the data.
• Developed the tools to input and analyze the metrics translating them to meaningful information in a way that is easy to understand.
• Created a system that is sustainable, simple to operate, and able to grow with the organization.
• Created a user instruction sheet at a level easily understandable by the lay person.

Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Central Arizona (https://www.bbbsaz.org/) matches volunteer adults (Bigs) with youth (Littles) that need mentors. They had recently implemented a Big Futures Program to help high school students improve their education, career options, and life enrichment.

The Big Futures mentoring program is designed to facilitate guidance between Bigs and Littles to help prepare for adulthood, the workforce, financial security, and independence. Through their Bigs and the BBBSAZ staff, Littles will be encouraged to stay focused on their academic and professional success. Big Futures programming provides enhanced training and support to matches that are focused on the student’s graduation from high school and progression into college, military and/or career. Participating matches receive resources and networking opportunities that provide guidance on college admission, financial aid and scholarships, as well as information about careers and workforce development opportunities, financial literacy, military service, and professional and technical training programs. Littles will also participate in group or cohort events quarterly, including college tours, career nights, resume writing, interviewing skills training, and leadership academies. Parents of the students and mentors will be provided with resources and education on how to best support the youth in college and career readiness. Most importantly, Bigs provide much needed mentorship, as Littles navigate opportunities that could positively shape their lives. For some, this could mean preparing for, and passing, their high school equivalency exam and enrolling in community college or a four-year college.

BBBS of Central Arizona wanted to use participant surveys to assess their Big Futures Program. The main purpose of the surveys was to enable reporting of impact to stakeholders. The organization has example surveys from the national BBBS and other regional BBBS nonprofits and they wanted a Pro Bono Analytics volunteer to help create the survey. Our volunteer was able to assist in development of the survey instrument, including consideration of a pre-test and post-test survey structure, advise on database tools for storing and handling survey data, and help develop a data analysis procedure to enable reporting impact and training staff to independently conduct data analysis.

LawNY: Legal Assistance for Western New York – LawNY is a nonprofit legal firm that provides access to the justice system for low-income people and other vulnerable populations who have civil legal problems. In 2015, the firm closed 8,877 cases benefiting 18,246 people across Western New York. LawNY sought analytics help in developing a business process map of the intake system used in its seven offices, analyzing where barriers exist, and making recommendations for improvements. Their ultimate goal was to improve the intake system so it works as efficiently and effectively as possible for its clients, intake workers and advocates. 

Meals on Wheels for Western New York is an essential program that delivers meals to members of the community who need it most. Their mission is to enrich lives and promote independent healthy living by offering nutritious foods and a friendly visit. Our volunteers helped them improve their processes for distributing meals, as well as improving storage and efficient utilization of warehouse space.

Nashville Zoo is a progressive and dynamic zoological park serving Middle Tennessee, southern Kentucky, and hundreds of thousands of tourists who travel to Nashville every year. The zoo’s Education Department was working on a comprehensive evaluation methodology for all their programs to measure knowledge, attitude, and behavioral change among participants. The zoo developed a uniform approach to evaluation and has tested several methods with the biggest hurdle being quantifying the results.  They rely on Survey Monkey for basic data management, and wanted volunteers help in improving the data analysis and their overall program evaluation process.  Our volunteer was able to pull all department surveys into Tableau to generate regular reports on program effectiveness that will help the zoo make strategic decisions about improving programs and also provide information to funders. They are thrilled with their new dashboards and central data storage location.

SkillWorks at The Boston Foundation is a multi-phase initiative that began as a $25 million public/private partnership in the Boston area designed to meet worker and business needs while developing pathways out of poverty in an economy where growth is for middle to high-skill jobs, while a large percentage of the workforce is unprepared for those jobs. The initial engagement focused primarily on understanding Skillworks' data, formulating and investigating options for storing this data and for automating production of performance metrics that are consistent with the organization's budget, and, finally, helping SkillWorks put together a more comprehensive plan for moving forward in meeting its strategic objectives as a more analytic and data savvy organization.

St. Mary’s Food Bank, America's first food bank, has just celebrated its 50 year anniversary. Serving 250,000 meals per day, it is truly a community-based organization. Individual donors, corporate donors, and private grants help feed hungry individuals and families. St. Mary's Food Bank serves two-thirds of Arizona’s 15 counties, they are committed to volunteerism, building community relationships and improving the quality of life for Arizonans in need. 

At the 2018 INFORMS Annual Meeting, INFORMS members and conference sponsors donated nearly $11,000 through donation matching with the help of an anonymous donor to purchase the supplies for snack packs to be distributed on the street Phoenix's homeless population. Throughout the four-day Annual Meeting, attendees from around the world, INFORMS and St. Mary’s Food Bank leadership, and representatives from the INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics program volunteered their time to help with the assembly of the kits. These kits contained items ranging from beef jerky to peanut butter and trail mix.

Over 1,000 kits totaling 1,002 lbs. of food were presented to St. Mary’s Food Bank to be shared with Phoenix’s homeless men, women, and children.

"I want to take a moment to thank you for all you did to make the Give Back volunteer project so successful. The INFORMS pick-up from the Phoenix Convention Center weighed in at 1,002 pounds! That’s huge!"

Friends Life Community is an organization dedicated to offering skill-building to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to decrease dependency, improve socialization, and increase community inclusion. They provide day programs that include art classes, life skills classes, community outings, volunteer work in the community, social clubs, and one-on-one coaching services.

They were seeking volunteer help to provide observation and analytics to help refine their data selection and reporting in an effort to improve communication around mission impact. They want to accurately showcase the progress of clients to their clients and the clients’ families and be able to make data-driven decisions about programming. They wanted to use their data to inform donors of progress in a way that helps them understand the impact they are making with their funding. Our volunteers were able to critically examine their data and provide recommendations for improving organization goals and building our various classes in their program area system. They volunteers then assisted with testing their feedback and Friends Life Community is excited to have new systems in place.

"Thank you for your continued patience with us, as we designed this system. We really appreciate your involvement in the project."

John Jay College of Criminal Justice was seeking volunteer analytics support to conduct a comprehensive review of the College’s academic and support programs for students, including examination of student outcomes disaggregated by race, sex, income, and other factors.  Our volunteers conducted an analysis that included support in creating a process that will be used by the College in the future, and in creating data visualizations of the analysis in order to make the data accessible and understandable to internal and external audiences. Results of this analysis included:

• identifying any hidden access or outcome gaps by race, sex, income, and other factors;
• increasing our understanding of – and testing our assumptions about – challenges and risk factors facing John Jay students;
• facilitating problem-solving to address identified challenges in order to achieve dramatic gains in success outcomes for all students; and
• launching a campus-wide improvement effort grounded in data and focused on increasing student success rates.

The data analysis and visualizations will support John Jay’s critical fundraising goals by helping John Jay tell the story of its students and their successes and challenges to potential donors. 

"Thank you again for all of your help with this project and to you and Miles for connecting us with such an incredible volunteer team."

Young Audiences of NJ & Eastern PA (YA NJ/EP) inspires young people to expand their learning through the arts. They do this by bringing arts experiences by professional teaching artists directly to students; making the arts accessible regardless of socioeconomic background, geographic area, and ability. YA NJ/EP wanted to work with a volunteer expert in decision analysis to help determine whether they should continue to host Dazzle, a large-scale annual fundraising event. Dazzle, a “Dancing with the Stars” type event involving donors and other supporters, raises general operating funds needed for running the organization. Our volunteers helped them collect the data, complete with a formal presentation to their board, to evaluate this decision to the best of their abilities and critically assess its impact on their mission.

Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America (SARDAA) is dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by schizophrenia-related brain illnesses through support programs, education, collaboration and advocacy.  SARDAA was looking for help in reviewing their Salesforce data and then creating a plan for moving forward. Our volunteers were able to investigate options for potentially expanding but more importantly using this data to benefit the organization by improving operational performance and supporting decision-making. They helped to construct dashboards for better visualization and communication tools for sharing this information with managers and leaders within SARDAA.  

Meals on Wheels for Western New York is an essential program that delivers meals to members of the community who need it most. Their mission is to enrich lives and promote independent healthy living by offering nutritious foods and a friendly visit. Our volunteers worked to help them improve their processes for purchasing, producing, and transporting food in addition to overhauling their existing data. They are working to improve deliveries, improving process efficiency, and to optimally design a menu.



Star of Hope Mission is dedicated to meeting the needs of Houston’s homeless men, women, and children and was the 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting Micro-Volunteering Partner Organization. The INFORMS conference community, corporate donors, and the Marriott Marquis Houston donated over $7,000 and supplies to build 1,000 much needed toiletry and personal hygiene kits to be distributed to the homeless population of Houston. Throughout the four-day Annual Meeting, attendees from around the world, INFORMS and Star of Hope leadership, and representatives from the INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics program, volunteered their time to help with the assembly of the kits. These kits contained items ranging from toothpaste and soap to socks and feminine hygiene products. 

Center in the Park (CIP), located in Philadelphia, is a senior community center that has gained local and national recognition for successful implementation of a "wellness center" model of programming. When you walk into the Center, you won't see "seniors" watching television – instead older adults will be Skyping in the "digital aging mastery program" or exercising in the "enhance fitness" class. Our volunteers are helping CIP to better measure the value of their health promotion and evidence-based programs by determining the benefit/cost.

Family Service of Greater Boston (FSGB) has focused on improving the lives of at-risk urban children, youth and their families since 1835. They currently provide services through three main programs: an outpatient mental health clinic, in-home therapy team, and a residential program for teens. FSGB asked for analytics help in developing a data management strategy that can standardize data collection, better coordinate care across programs, and better serve their clients.

"Offered an excellent and professional approach to our statistical and data challenges. Working with Deborah was absolutely wonderful."

Community Empowerment Solutions empowers community members in countries like the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to implement high social impact technologies that address education, economic, energy and health challenges. CE Solutions had designed a survey to assess the outcomes of their program. The Pro Bono Analytics volunteers are helping them review the survey design, ensure that it meets best practices, and that it asks questions that will yield accurate and useful data for assessing their program.

"I've enjoyed working with [your volunteers] Ela and friends and getting to know Miriam as well, Thanks for supporting this opportunity!"

Safe Haven Family Shelter helps families move from the street to the shelter and then on to a permanent housing. 2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting attendees stopped by the Pro Bono Analytics table in the INFORMS Center to create cards of encouragement for Safe Haven families and learn more about the program. 

Indiana Association for Community Economic Development (IACED) is an intermediary agency, working with local communities and regional, state, and national stakeholders around economic development. The Pro Bono Analytics volunteer is helping them design a common outcome framework that will assist Indiana-based nonprofits to report, track, and measure performance outcomes.

The Teachers Desk is a store where teachers shop for FREE books, school supplies, and teacher resources for students in their classrooms - its mission is to distribute school supplies to students in need, to encourage teachers, and to provide purpose through volunteerism. Our volunteers helped them evaluate the best way to utilize storage in their warehouse space and implement a system for future quality control.

"The Pro Bono team has taken our organizational dreams for the warehouse of Teacher's Desk and made them a reality."
- John Mika, Director