Our Work

10:12 Sports

The client

10:12 Sports ministers to young black men in West Baltimore, connecting with them and teaching them important life skills through sports.

The project

Neighborhood adults mentor local youth in a disaggregated manner. Volunteers helped design a system for collecting relevant data about mentoring participation. A key element of the project was to determine which questions needed to be answered and what data was required to answer them.

Volunteers

1. Jagrutee Gawande
2. Sean Grogan
3. Preet Sinojiya
4. Prakash Sudhakar

organization-youth-development project-data-collection

1000 Days Fund

The client

The mission of the 1000 Days Fund is to deliver a national, scalable solution for two pressing issues: transforming in-home access to information and providing critical training for village health volunteers in order to end stunting in Indonesian children by 2030. Whether it’s Flores, Sumba, or any of the 16 provinces of Indonesia in which they work, they go where they’re needed most.

The 1000 Days Fund installs height charts in homes and communities, works in close partnership with local government officials and local NGOs to build capacity and strengthen health systems, and co-creates six-month plans with the local health workers on the ground in each village.The organization stays committed to accompanying the people and communities they serve for the long term. 

The project

The 1000 Days Fund was planning to pitch a Stunting Impact Bond that would enroll 10,000 pregnant mothers across 5 islands. There would be five criteria that the mothers would have to fulfill over 1000 days—taking iron and folic acid, exclusively breastfeeding their child, getting six check-ups during their pregnancy, having a smart chart installed in their home, and ensuring there is soap in the house for hand washing. The Fund needed support from analytics volunteers to design a methodology to estimate the impact of this program in the 10,000 pregnant mothers/families.

Volunteers

1. Lina Song
2. Grace Zeng

organization-public-health project-impact-measurement

Amanda Hope Rainbow Angels

The client

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.

The project

AHRA wanted to be able to communicate their data more effectively with grant funders, donors, stakeholders, and the community. Volunteers were asked to help consolidate all of the organization data into a cloud data-warehouse, to automate reporting, ensure accuracy, and eliminate data silos. This included developing metrics to convey the impact of their services, identifying the data needed, developing surveys and procedures to collect the data and tools to analyze it, and providing instructions on how to use the tools.

Volunteers

1. Ece Ceren Izgi
2. Michelle Muha

organization-child-health project-data-collection project-data-analysis project-impact-measurement

American Alpine Club

The client

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.

The project

AAC sought help from Pro Bono Analytics volunteers to do the following:

• analyze demographic data collected through Survey Monkey;
• find sources of similar data;
• identify additional variables needed and their sources; and
  
• find sources of historical data (to allow a longitudinal analysis).

Volunteers

1. Arjun Berry
2. Kevin Mentzer
3. Tyler Penkofski

project-data-collection organization-recreation project-data-analysis

American Music Therapy Association

The client

The mission of the American Music Therapy Association is to advance public awareness of the benefits of music therapy and increase access to quality music therapy services in a rapidly changing world.

The project

AMTA was faced with a major decision regarding standards. They sought help to define the issue, identify relevant data, and develop a decision model to support an informed decision that would be in the best interest of their members and the general public seeking their services. 

Volunteer

1. Adam Clark

project-decision-analysis organization-public-health

Arts Every Day

The client

Arts Every Day works with Baltimore City Public Schools and a network of arts organizations to improve equitable access to arts education. 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.

The project

Arts Every Day sought help to analyze their available data and to assist in producing reports on the state of the arts in Baltimore City Public Schools, both at the system and individual school levels.  Those reports would be open to the public, so that students, parents, and schools could have an informed perspective on participation in the arts at the various public schools in the district.

Volunteers

1. Olivia Chen

organization-education organization-youth-development project-data-analysis

Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap

The client

Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap, which has since closed, provided educational materials for students and teachers. By collecting donations of excess office supplies, arts and crafts materials, and classroom supplies from teachers, schools, businesses, and individuals and providing them to Baltimore City teachers and students, they sought to reduce the burden of teachers spending their own money on supplies, and ensure that teachers and students had the supplies they needed to be successful.

The project

BTSS asked volunteers to look at their data, determining whether that data was appropriate for grant requests and whether additional data was needed. This included working with BTSS to identify the metrics that best conveyed the value of their services.

Volunteers

1. Gisela Bardossy
2. Richard San Juan

organization-education project-data-analysis project-data-collection project-impact-measurement

Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Central Arizona

The client

Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Central Arizona matches volunteer adults (Bigs) with youth (Littles) that need mentors. Their 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 are 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.

The project

BBBS wanted to use participant surveys to assess their Big Futures Program. The main purpose was to enable reporting of impact to stakeholders. They asked for help with the following:

• assistance in development of the survey instrument, including consideration of a pre-test and post-test survey structure;
• advice on database tools for storing and handling survey data; and
• development of a data analysis procedure to enable reporting impact and training staff to independently conduct data analysis.

Volunteers

1. Guoying (Grace) Zhang

organization-youth-development project-data-collection project-impact-measurement


Community Empowerment Solutions

The client

Community Empowerment Solutions was a nonprofit organization that worked with impoverished communities in the Caribbean region. Their model involved acquiring products beneficial to low-income families, such as solar powered lamps, and providing them to local entrepreneurs at or near cost. The local entrepreneurs then sold the items to consumers needing them at a modest markup, benefiting both parties.

The project

CES wanted to survey the consumers of their products to assess both demand and perceived value. Their entrepreneur partners would conduct the survey. Complicating matters were language issues (most of their operating area contained Spanish speakers but Haiti was a clear exception), cultural issues (possibly skewing responses to be favorable as a sign of courtesy) and literacy concerns among both respondents and surveyors. PBA volunteers designed an innovative survey and collection mechanism to address those concerns.

Volunteers

1. Matthew Brondum
2. Miriam Konz

organization-poverty-alleviation project-data-collection project-impact-measurement

Conflict Resolution Center of Baltimore County

The client

Founded in 2009, the Conflict Resolution Center of Baltimore County's mission is to support the resolution of interpersonal and community conflict through the use of community mediation, community conferencing, and other restorative justice services and education. CRCBC services are accessible to all persons and organizations in Baltimore County, at convenient times and locations, provided by trained individuals that honor the diversity of the community.

The project

CRCBC sought help in developing key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate the impact of the organization's activities to sponsors and stakeholders. Their goals were to:

• review and evaluate the quality, completeness, and usefulness of the existing data held in the organization;
• define KPIs that could be derived from this data to document the ways CRCBC has served the county government;
• facilitate the development of a proposal for financial support from Baltimore County government; and
• help document data needs and other business requirements for other important work that CRCBC planned to do in the future.

Volunteers

1. Jess Christian
2. William Christian

organization-community-support project-impact-measurement project-data-collection


Friendly Loving Opportunities

The client

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.

The project

FLO had accumulated participation data from their various programs and activities. They sought guidance on how to generate estimates of the impact of their activities on the well-being of the people they serve. Under consideration were analysis of their existing data, searches for publicly accessible supplementary data, and recommendations for additional data to collect (and how to collect it). They also sought suggestions on better ways to store and utilize the data they had.

Volunteers

1. Robert Coburn
2. Victor Fortin
3. Sharon Morris
4. Anna Svirsko

organization-poverty-alleviation project-data-collection project-impact-measurement




Friends Life Community

The client

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.

The project

Friends Life Community sought help refining 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 to donors, and to be able to make data-driven decisions about programming.

Volunteers

1. Wendy Swenson-Roth

project-data-collection project-impact-measurement project-decision-analysis organization-disabilities

Goodwill of Greater Grand Rapids

The client

The mission of Goodwill is to “strive to enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by helping people reach their full potential through education, skills training and the power of work.” Goodwill is one of the most respected companies in the US and Canada, known for operating hundreds of thrift stores based on extensive donation efforts and for its successful job training programs.

The project

The Grand Rapids headquarters operated 20 stores in an eight-county region in Michigan. They were faced with a problem most brick and mortar stores are having – declining foot traffic in the stores. The stores and online sales help provide funding and opportunities for job training.

Volunteers worked with the VP of Business Intelligence at the Grand Rapids Goodwill to evaluate the different campaigns used by Goodwill and their effectiveness in generating foot traffic at eight of the stores in their region. A secondary assessment was how the campaigns impacted donations. The marketing campaigns involved a variety of media, including television ads, social media, Pandora, print and billboards.

Volunteers

1. Michael Altemeier
2. Sophia Sullivan

organization-workforce-development project-data-analysis project-marketing

Hannah's House

The client

Hannah's House was an organization based in San Diego, CA that provided a network of family programs seeking to create bright futures for children and peaceful resolutions for parents challenged by the adverse childhood experience of parental separation.

The project

Hannah's House sought help to measure impact of their programs and services on the well-being of clients, and long-term positive impacts of the program. This included assessing the availability, quality, and usability of their data, identifying gaps in their data, performing some initial data analyses and developing a plan for next steps to meet their organization goals and objectives.

Volunteers

1. Steve Tai

project-data-analysis project-impact-measurement organization-family-services

Housed Working and Healthy

The client

Housed Working and Healthy's (HWH) mission is to help people become self-sufficient. The HWH model is a partner based eco-system that co-locates housing, mental health services, workforce training and employment, along with a meal plan. This supportive structure and services helps people stabilize, develop a support network, become trained, gain experience, get a job, secure housing and ultimately become self-sufficient.

The project

HWH sought to create a set of community indicators that could be employed to assess the societal need for the HWH process of helping struggling individuals to become self-sufficient, with employment and housing. These indicators needed to be measurable based on available community data, which required exploration of available data sources. The ideal set of indicators would achieve the following:

• demonstrate the societal need for HWH;
• assess the potentially favorable financial impact of HWH on the City of Denver;
• enable comparisons between HWH and similar nonprofit organizations, so as to better articulate the HWH mission; and
  
• provide statistics to assist HWH in fundraising efforts.

HWH was also interested in creating a graphical dashboard of indicators and statistics.

Volunteers

1. Dan Betcher
2. Shaifali Juneja
3. Joel Ramos

project-data-collection project-impact-measurement organization-workforce-development organization-housing-assistance organization-mental-health


Houston Methodist Hospital

The client

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.

The project

HMH wanted 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?

Volunteers

1. Tingting (Rachel) Chung
2. Kiatikun Louis Luangkesorn
3. Roochi Mishra

organization-health-care project-data-analysis project-marketing

I AM MENtality

The client

The 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 to include individual and family counseling, peer-to-peer support groups and mentoring, and academic tutoring to reach and help these boys.

The project

I AM MENtality needed 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; and
  
• determining which, if any, data currently collected (as manual records) would be useful for documenting outcomes.
  

Volunteers

1. Berna Basar
2. Veena Rao
3. Nouri Sakr
4. Joy Weaver

organization-youth-development project-data-collection project-impact-measurement

IDinsight

The client

IDinsight is a global advisory, data analytics, and research organization that helps development leaders maximize their social impact. They work with governments, multilateral agencies, foundations, and innovative non-profit organizations in Asia and Africa across a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, education, health, governance, sanitation, and financial inclusion.

The project

IDinsight was working with a national government in North Africa on eliminating barriers to schooling for out-of-school children. Since many children come from rural areas, safe transport to school was important but under-provisioned. The mission was to assist the national government in using population, demographic, and geographic data to plan investments in the construction of dormitories and provisioning of school buses.

Volunteers

1. Mohan Chiriki
2. Matheus Diogenes Andrade
3. Manuel Laguna
4. Paul Rubin
5. Joseph Schoenbeck
6. Sankash Shankar

organization-international-NGO project-location-analysis project-routing project-capital-planning



Indianapolis Art Center

The client

The Indianapolis Art Center (IAC) is like no other organization in Indiana and few in the country; it is an independent creative space that meets an individual where they are at with art, offering free access to six public art galleries and 17 university–quality studios with classes for artists of all ages and skill levels, and employing more artists than any other organization in Indiana.

The project

IAC had two primary databases, one for donors and one for participants in their education programs, that were disconnected from each other. In addition, data were available from ticket sales for their Art Fair. IAC was interested in cleaning, merging and analyzing their available data to gain a better understanding of their participants and relationships between different roles as donors, members, and students.

Volunteers

1. Lily Damron
2. Van Tran

organization-arts project-data-analysis



John Jay College of Criminal Justice

The client

John Jay College of Criminal Justice is a community of motivated and intellectually committed individuals who explore justice in its many dimensions. The College’s liberal arts curriculum equips students to pursue advanced study and meaningful, rewarding careers in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Their professional programs introduce students to foundational and newly emerging fields and prepare them for advancement within their chosen professions.

The project

John Jay wanted 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.  This included both creating data visualizations of the analysis in order to make the data accessible and understandable to internal and external audiences and creating a process that could be used by the College in the future. Analysis targets included the following:

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

Volunteers

1. Adam Bookman
2. Lucas Cyr
3. Ashley Jackson

organization-education project-data-analysis project-decision-analysis



KABOOM!

The client

KABOOM! unites with communities to build kid-designed playspaces. Combined with their decades of experience in community engagement, these playspaces can spark joy and foster a sense of belonging for communities of color — communities that disproportionately have less access to play where they learn and live.

The project

Volunteers worked with KABOOM! to create a strategy map that could be used to eliminate playspace inequity gaps in underserved communities of color and low-income communities in three California cities: Los Angeles; Oakland; and San Francisco. Project goals included the following.

• Collecting data from distinct sources on the location of playspaces.
• Utilizing this data in combination with other datasets on race, ethnicity, and income to:
  • Create a report that shows where there is a need for investment in playspaces.
  • Generate a mathematical optimization model to suggest new playspace locations to maximize reach while adhering to budget constraints and other limitations such as bus stops, transportation, etc.
• Building step-by-step instructions to aid in a national rollout of this playspace analysis.

Volunteers

1. Mitch Stepleton

organization-youth-development organization-recreation project-data-collection project-data-analysis

LawNY

The client

Legal Assistance of 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.

The project

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.

Volunteers

1. Rebecca Gaupmann

project-process-improvement organization-legal-aid

MedSurplus Alliance

The client

The MedSurplus Alliance (MSA) is a cross-sector alliance that works collaboratively to improve access to quality donated medical products, through accreditation, capacity-building, management and technology solutions, and leadership. MSA is a program of The Task Force for Global Health. Collectively, Task Force programs have a real impact by solving massive health problems. They work with partners to eliminate diseases that have plagued humanity for centuries and transform health systems, so that in the end, all people can realize their right to living a healthy life.

The project

The goal of the project was to help MSA build a resilient supply chain to be able respond efficiently and effectively at critical times such as pandemic spread as well as normal situations. Three main deliverables were envisioned.

• Optimal Network Design - MSA did not own a logistics system and used third party offerings. They wanted to build a logistic network to move inventory around and increase the scope of service.
• Optimize Inventory Strategy - MSA wanted to create predictive models to forecast different medical supply, equipment and device demand across the network and develop an optimal inventory plan.
• Flexible Processes - Upon developing network design and inventory models, MSA wanted to build a set of action-oriented dashboards to bring full visibility into current state, and develop processes to lead to desired actions.

Volunteers

1. Oswaldo Almonacid Rivas
2. Diego Delgado Caseres
3. Sebastian Granda Altamirano
4. Christian Ramirez Luna

organization-public-health project-process-improvement project-data-analysis

Mentoring Mentors

The client

Mentoring Mentors (MM), 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. MM works 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.

The first project

Mentoring Mentors was just beginning to explore the use of analytics. They sought help from Pro Bono Analytics to construct an initial data acquisition and storage strategy. Questions to be answered included the following.

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

Since it took time to collect the needed data, analysis of the data was not part of the initial project.

Volunteers

1. Rachel Brame
2. Sean Justice
3. S. (Kam) Kamakshi
4. Noah Purcell

The second project

MM sought help to integrate or design a system to store the data they had collected, with the aim of developing cross-sectional data, analyzing current data, comparing and contrasting data, and using their data to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs.

Volunteers

1. Rachel Brame

organization-youth-development project-data-collection


Mobile Integrated Health - Community Paramedicine

The client

The Baltimore City Fire Department, University of Maryland Medical Center, the City of Baltimore, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore partnered to launch Mobile Integrated Healthcare – Community Paramedicine (MIH-CP), a community-based pilot program. MIH-CP supports the health of individuals through a comprehensive, free, multidisciplinary care model for patients which provides care outside the hospital setting, designed to reduce health disparities, decrease emergency department visits, and prevent hospital readmissions.

The first project

Minor Definitive Care Now (MDCN) is a program that supports low acuity patients who call 911 for EMS evaluation and transport. MDCN was only permitted to respond to 9-1-1 calls dispatched as low acuity by the 911 call center. There were potentially missing medically appropriate patients to evaluate and treat because of inaccurate information via the call center. Provider referrals would allow for any paramedic working within the 9-1-1 system to refer patients directly to MDCN for evaluation and treatment. Volunteers were asked to help determine how provider referrals would impact MDCN. Additionally, MDCN wanted to know whether there was an optimal location to station the MDCN vehicle, and at what point an expansion of the coverage area would require a second vehicle.

Volunteers

1. Kiatikun Louis Luangkesorn
2. Venroy Porter

The second project

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 primary objective of the THS program is to reduce 30-day unplanned re-admissions to any hospital. Volunteers were asked to help THS gain an understanding of their performance metrics and how certain decision variables are connected to these performance metrics, and to identify relevant and potentially available data to support the optimization of decisions.

Volunteers

1. Lucy Huang
2. Steven Lauretti

organization-public-health project-data-analysis project-decision-analysis project-location-analysis

Nashville Zoo

The client

The 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 project

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. They wanted help in improving the data analysis and the overall program evaluation process. The project was done in two phases. The first phase involved defining metric that would help the zoo make strategic decisions about improving programs and also provide information to funders, and assessing the data needed. In the second phase, the volunteer helped develop a data pipeline from Google Sheets (where the data was stored) to software that could be used for visualization.

Volunteers

1. Paul Jurek

organization-conservation project-data-analysis project-decision-analysis project-data-management


Next One Up

The client

Next One Up (NOU) is a long term mentoring and out of school time program. They recruit young men from Baltimore City and work with them through middle school, high school, and their post-secondary journey. One of their goals is to ensure the program participants are stable by their mid-twenties and can start giving back to the organization by helping the next generation of students.

The project

NOU tracked the following data: weekly attendance to their program, retention of students from year to year, percentage of students who graduated high school on time, percentage of students who were accepted into college, and a few other items. They need the help of Pro Bono Analytics to determine if there were other data they should be collecting in order to better gauge their impact and success with program participants.

Volunteers

1. Elizabeth Dombowsky
2. Kim Sembrano
3. Rodney Spears

organization-youth-development project-data-collection project-impact-measurement

The PhD Project

The client

The PhD Project was founded upon the premise that advancements in workplace diversity could be propelled forward by increasing the diversity of business school faculty. Today, their network of supporters, sponsors and universities helps Black/African Americans, Latinx/Hispanic American and Native Americans attain their business PhD and become business professors who will mentor the next generation of leaders.

The project

The PhD Project sought support from Pro Bono Analytics to analyze available data of applicants to the annual PhD Project conference. The goal was to identify criteria/attributes of those admitted to full-time business doctoral programs. Those criteria would be used in the application review process to determine who should be invited to attend the conference.

Volunteers

1. James Cochran
2. Diego García
3. Kouame N'Goran
4. Paul Rubin

organization-education project-data-analysis


Remerg

The client

The mission of Remerg is to stop the revolving door of recidivism, one resource at a time. Their vision is a world where people released from incarceration are able to restart successfully and never go back. They connect people released from prison and jail to resources and information they need, when they need it. By doing so, Remerg.com fosters agency, supports success, and ultimately helps to reduce the rate of recidivism in Colorado.

The project

Remerg uses Google Analytics for their website. They sought guidance in how to use it, what information they could extract, and how to interpret that information.

Volunteers

1. Venroy Porter
2. Laurent Poulain

project-web-analytics organization-community-support


Silver Whiskers Farm and Animal Rescue

The client

Silver Whiskers Farm and Animal Rescue is a very small nonprofit founded in 2018 with the primary goal of raising awareness for homeless senior cats in foster care and raising funding to defray the cost of care needed for older cats. When a senior cat in foster care requires special medical treatment, the rescue group caring for that cat can request a financial contribution from Silver Whiskers to help cover this cost. Fundraising is currently by direct donations or by donating a portion of the sales of the farm's products.

The project

The budget and all financially related transactions and decisions were handled manually via an Excel spreadsheet. In addition, information on the senior cats in foster care was not officially tracked. This made it difficult to manage an appropriate balance between available funds and requests for contributions towards medical treatment. A more streamlined and coordinated system was desired that could achieve the following:

• enable easy entry and management of transactions;
• provide tracking of relevant information on senior cats in their foster care group; and
• allow data analysis capability that could potentially anticipate future needs for the senior cats and/or identify the appropriate size of contributions toward their medical care.

Volunteers

1. Jessica Mehrens
2. Pavithra Sripathanallur Murali

organization-animal-rescue project-data-management

SkillWorks

The client

SkillWorks, a program launched by The Boston Foundation, invests in employer-driven, sector-based training and placement strategies to help low-skill, low- and moderate-income residents move to family-sustaining jobs; and help employers find and retain skilled employees.

The project

SkillWorks needed analytics help to understand its data, formulate and investigate options for data storage and automating production of performance metrics, and develop a plan for moving forward.

Volunteers

1. Mehrnaz Abdollahian
2. Rozhin Doroudi

project-data-management organization-workforce-development


Southwest Works

The client

The Southwest Partnership is a community-led community development organization. They work to revitalize seven neighborhoods in southwest Baltimore City and implement the 'Vision Plan' created by area residents.

Southwest Works (SW) is the Southwest Partnership’s workforce development program. It exists to advance the Workforce Development Committee’s goal of working towards full, appropriate employment at a living wage for all community members. It covers three main program areas -- working with individual community members, working with other workforce development organizations in the area, and working with local anchor institutions on advancing their local hiring goals and increasing the number of community members hired at local anchors. Each of these areas is connected, but all have distinct evaluation, data management, and analysis goals.

The project

Southwest Works needed to effectively describe their impact to a range of stakeholders: funders; community leaders; community members who might take advantage of the program; and partners, including other workforce development organizations in the area. In order to do this, SW asked for help for the following:

• developing a system and a plan to fully utilize their new Client Management System to run reports and analysis on data they already had;
  
• reviewing performance metrics for each of the Southwest Works program areas;
  
• identifying what data they were not collecting that would be needed for calculation of performance metrics, and developing a strategy for collecting that data; and
  
• developing a report on Southwest Work’s impact that could be shared with multiple stakeholders (or multiple reports for different audiences).
  

Volunteers

1. Cooper Aspegren
2. Barbara Lond
3. Kendra Taylor

organization-workforce-development project-data-collection project-data-management project-impact-measurement

Young Audiences

The client

Young Audiences of New Jersey & Eastern Pennsylvania (YA NJ/EPA) 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.

The project

YA NJ/EPA was applying for a grant aimed at improving student engagement in learning through the reduction of chronic school absenteeism. A key component of the program, and of the grant application, was development of a monitoring process incorporating both qualitative and quantitative measures  such as changes in absenteeism rates, student academic performance,social and emotional state of the students, and assessment of teacher performance. YA NJ/EPA asked Pro Bono Analytics for help developing the monitoring process.

Volunteers

1. Xixi Chen
2. Matthew Gorman
3. Michael Kennedy
4. Jack Kloeber
5. David Krahl
6. Naga Kundeti
7. Emilia Silebi
8. Yunsheng Xiao
9. Peiran Zhao

organization-arts organization-education project-impact-measurement