What non profits can learn from the obama campaign
- 1. Data, Non-Profits and the Obama’s Campaign There is an important lesson non-profits can learn from the Obama campaign. While some political pundits mocked a small group of Obama’s campaign staff, referring to them as “martians,” the group repeatedly delivered results. Their prediction that Obama could win Florida and Ohio prompted changes to the President’s schedule days before the election. As election night ended Florida and Ohio had been won and the “martians” celebrated. In the election, analytics revealed the weaknesses of relying on traditional polling data and previous voter behaviors as predictors. It also vividly demonstrated that using a variety of data sources models might provide a more comprehensive view of the “voter.” As post election news coverage explained how analytics had impacted the election one reporter remarked, the “martians have landed.” IT IS TIME TO CHANGE There are several changes non-profits could and should to make to improve their funding efforts. Using the process of analyzing available data might well alter the return on the invested time and energy in raising funds. An increasing number of for-profit companies recognize the value which data has to impact their sales, customer service, product development, delivery schedule and even hiring staff. Most if not all non-profits would benefit from using analytics to improve their funding, operations, personnel, grant making and even selecting volunteers to serve on their boards. Analytics is not new. It is a process of taking available data and running a series of predictive models to test whether assumptions are correct. Theoretically, the more data added the better the prediction becomes. What made the “martians” successful was after building predictive models they continually refined the models by adding more data. While some of the data came from private polls and interviews much of it came from public sources readily available simply for the asking. Depending on the type of non-profit organization the amount of collected data will vary, but it is there waiting to be used. Further, data collected by government, private and public sources is also available. Imagine a museum comparing its own data on its visitors to national data about family vacation destinations, educational programs, economic data, data about neighborhoods, cities, housing, magazines and web sites visited. But before non-profits do any data crunching there are changes which need to be made regarding data and analysis. Changing Attitudes Most likely the biggest challenge for non-profits is not the cost to hire a data specialist, gathering the data or the technology to analyze it, rather the attitude and belief about data. Arguably most important change that needs to occur is the need for executives to acknowledge and stress the importance for gathering and using data. Second, when replacing staff consider hiring staff that are outcome driven and enjoy analyzing data.
- 2. Third, the organization must be willing, should it be necessary, to break from the past processes, especially when it comes to fund development, and to commit to using analytics to improve results. True, there is a cost to gather and collect data, primarily staff time, but the general lack of or use of data is far more costly. Lacking data and the unwillingness to measure is and has been far more detrimental, especially during this period in which many non-profits are facing decreased funding from their typical funding sources. Far too many non- profits have succumbed to the challenges of measurement and have used the ill advised excuse they can not measure their program, the results or the impact. Executives should be driven to collect and use data throughout every level of the organization, even in back office functions. Foundations, funding agencies, Federal and State governments are increasingly looking for data. Organizations need to examine and re-evaluate what data is collected on membership forms, from social media centers, what data is collected or evaluation forms, from general discussion with members or visitors, about how member’s pay dues or admission fees as well as general trends. The message from the Chief Executive should be: Not having or not using data is no longer acceptable. Recruiting staff From newspaper stories about the Obama campaign after the election sheds some light on how they valued data and recruited workers. The previous 2008 campaign had shown the need and value of data. The way they recruited people who liked and knew how and where to gather data also is a lesson for non-profits. They did not spend a lot of money recruiting instead issued a general notice on web sites which people who like to analyze data visit that the campaign was seeking staff. The form prospects completed was short but focused. After getting a name and email address it asked the person to explain why they liked gathering and analyzing data. What is preventing non-profits from recruiting and hiring specialist? Is it the overriding emphasis non-profits seem to place to find candidates who support the mission or the cause? Is it a concern among non-profit executives that the data specialist might not “fit with the non-profit culture” or just a lack of appreciating the value analyst could have for the organization? The lesson from the campaign is that those “martians” contributed far more to the organization than any concerns there might be about their commitment to the cause, their salaries or how well they might fit in. Using Analytics Consider for a moment the traditional fund development model used by non-profits. It is a process most repeat yearly, especially with an annual campaign. Staff members, gathering a few pertinent examples of the work, create materials to explain what the organization does and why the mission is important. Then develop and communicate, to their colleagues, the Board and campaign volunteers, a common message and prepare scripts for everyone. Finally, they produce the lists of persons to solicit and send out the materials or hold an event.
- 3. If this sounds like what happens, then there is a need for change! Where in this process has there been any analysis of data? There is a wealth of information that can be and should be gathered to improve the fund development ROI. It could include following up on membership inquiries, seeking out demographic information about members, particularly new members (where they live, age, gender, what motivated them to join) what social media they follow and general information about members or trends and changes to membership. Non-profits could learn a lot about how to raise funds by looking at how the Obama campaign used “analytics” to discern where the votes were. Analysts could investigate the reasons member contribute or have stopped contributing; determine whether the organization’s contributions are similar to national trends or why the last fund event was successful or failed to deliver expected results. The analyst could look at what social media reveals about who visited the website, what pages were viewed, how long they stayed engaged, who is following Twitter or opening the organization’s Facebook page. Additionally, general demographic changes or Google analytics could be included to enrich the data the organization collects. There is a significant amount of data non-profits could use, if, they had a deeper appreciation for data and had staff who knew what to do with it. Effectively using analytics, non-profits could find new sources of revenue, improve operations and impact staff hiring and boards recruitment process.
- 4. Mr. Neils’ career includes management and executive positions in for-profit and not-for- profit organizations. Early in his career, he returned to academia and became interested in researching organizational goals, performance measures and financial returns on non- profit organizations. Although his published works are often directed toward non-profits, his concepts and analysis are equally applicable to for-profits as well. As his career progressed, Mr. Neils recognized the day-to-day demands on executives, especially managers’, were most often at the tactical decision level, leaving little time to improve or develop strategic skills. As a result, he developed a keen interest in strategic thinking. His first work was Using Conceptual Models to Improve an Executive’s Strategic Thinking. This paper was a theoretical exploration of conceptual models and strategic thinking. Adapting Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Social Needs” Mr. Neils examined how internal and external forces act on organizations and executives. Following that, he began to investigate how executives might integrate creativity as a way to improve strategic thinking skills. This second article Creativity, Strategic Thinking and Statistical Models questions how commonly used statistic models and creativity might aid an executive’s and staff’s skill to think strategically. Because of the interest generated from these articles, he began to investigate how managers and executives learned to think strategically. His research found most emphasis to be on attributes of strategic thinking people and the need to think strategic, but little on teaching methodology. This prompted, Developing the Skill of Strategic Thinking in which he suggests flowcharting as a possible method to teach staff, managers and executives to become strategic thinkers. Mr. Neils’ recently completed, What non-profits can learn from the Obama Campaign argues the need for non-profits to improve their use of data and data analysis and makes specific recommendations to follow. Mr. Neils belongs to several LinkedIn groups on non-profit management, strategic thinking and performance measures. He can be reached at James.neils@gmail.com and skype at James.neils1 and sponsors a Twitter page called nonprofitsage.