Data Maturity in Nonprofits

According to 🔗👉 Data Orchard, 👈🔗data maturity is the journey towards improvement and increased capability in using data.

Data Orchard recently released their look at the state of the industry's use of data in their report 🔗👉 Data Maturity in the Not-for-Profit Sector. 👈🔗 As you might expect, I found many of the findings interesting to say the least. I thought you might find a few of these highlights interesting as well. The research focuses on UK organizations, but much of it applies to organizations in the US and across the globe.

• The nonprofit sector is still learning about data. Data shows most organizations are at the learning stage on their data maturity path.
• A lack of data skills remains a major challenge for nonprofits. A major obstacle is nonprofit teams don't know what skills and capabilities they need, nor where they can access trustworthy advice and support.
• While almost all organizations say their leadership think data is important, only 6% think leaders actually prioritize data as a vital resource and understand how to use it.
• Organizations with larger budgets are not necessarily more data mature than those with smaller budgets. However, those that invest in data related resources - people, skills, training, tools - are more advanced.
• Organizations aren't taking advantage of digital tools to make data work for them. 40% collect data on paper moderately or extensively. This one blew me away.

Data maturity takes time and effort, but the benefits are worth it.

Where is your organization on it's journey to data maturity?