Data analysis is key in the charity sector, but research shows that UK charities are missing out on funding due to poor data management.
A Sagacity survey of 50 UK charity and not-for-profit finance and revenue professionals found that almost half (47%) of charity revenue leakages can be traced back to data issues. Ta. It found that poor processes, governance and controls, as well as a lack of oversight, contributed to an annual revenue leakage of £835m.
In January, training provider Corndel partnered with Imperial College Executive Education to host a data learner networking event at Imperial College Business School. Computer Weekly spoke to Emma Linney, who attended the event. Ms. Linnie is involved in local fundraising efforts at Claire’s House Her Hospice, which supports children with serious terminal illnesses.
Liney was part of Hospice UK’s Data Academy cohort, which gave 96 learners from 64 different hospices the opportunity to develop their data skills and knowledge through Imperial College and Corndell’s Data-Driven Professionals programme. This has been made possible by her donations of over £1m from Korndell’s corporate partners.
Liney’s data journey began during lockdown. That’s when she realized that her role was taking “more time to go through databases, clean up data, and do little bits of work.” Although she admits she didn’t know much about what she was doing, the experience she gained sparked her interest in data.
In 2023, Linney attended a Data and Insights fundraising conference with her manager, which she says opened her eyes to how big a role data could play in fundraising. Her manager then received an email about Imperial and Korndell’s Data-Driven Professional program and encouraged Linney to apply.
Her husband and colleagues, who are taking similar courses, have shown her some things about Microsoft Excel, but she says, “The reality is that I didn’t know where to look to know how to use it.”
“Before joining the program, I did not understand how I could work with data within my role. It’s amazing what we can do. We’re now making decisions based on analytics and data.”
Emma Linney, Clare House Hospice
For example, she points out that a Google search for how to do something in Excel would bring up hundreds of videos, some of which were difficult to understand. “That was the scary part,” she says.
Discover the power of data
What started as a desire to understand more about Excel, through this program I discovered the power of data to develop effective strategies and support data analysis and data-driven decision making at work.
This online course taught Liney from the basics of Excel to how to use Power BI and Power Query. “Everything was so staged and so easy to understand that nothing was scary,” she says.
The program includes online training as well as monthly workshops on Teams with other apprentices in the charity sector. There are also hearth conversations with experts. The most recent meeting that Liney attended focused on the topic of decision-making in times of uncertainty.
This begs the question: Can data really tell the whole truth? “There will be times when the data is telling us one thing but our intuition is telling us another. And because we work in communities, sometimes our intuition tells us something different. is sometimes true,” says Linney.
Linney spends a fifth of her work week on the apprenticeship program, which allows her to apply the lessons she learns from online lessons to her work. “I have built many dashboards in her Power BI that will benefit us for years to come because they can be automatically updated with new monthly data,” she says. says.
“My role is to work with the community to fundraise, but it’s also important to use data to decide who to target different fundraising strategies,” she added. “Before joining the program, I did not understand how I could work with data within my role. It’s amazing what we can do. We’re now making decisions based on analytics and data. Being able to make data-driven decisions in all areas of care, funding, and across the organization is a great thing. It makes a huge impact.”
