FREE Webinar Series: Nonprofit Data for Beginners from Idealware

Three ninety minute webinars, Thursdays, May 7 – May 21, 1-2:30 PM Eastern

Idealware has now made this series FREE for everyone!
Register: https://offers.techimpact.org/nonprofit-data-for-beginners-0

The term “big data” gets used (and misused) a lot, making it seem scary and expensive. But bigger isn’t always better. When it comes to nonprofits, gathering the right data—and knowing how to use it—is what matters. Nonprofit Data for Beginners is a three-week course designed to help you ask the right questions, find the data you need, and use your data to strengthen your organization.

In this course, you will:
• Consider what questions you need your data to answer.
• Learn how to define your goals and develop processes for collecting your data.
• Explore the many places where you can find useful data.
• Learn how to manage your metrics and data so that they remain useful over the long term.
• Dive into case studies of real organizations using data to make decisions.

Participants will be given “homework” assignments that help them to apply what they’re learning to their own work. Participants who send their homework in advance of each session will have the opportunity to be given live feedback.

Presented by Expert Trainer Eric Leland
Eric Leland has spent the last 15 years working with progressive organizations and businesses tackling online and offline technology challenges. He’s a founding partner of FivePaths (fivepaths.com), a technology firm that brings unparalleled strategic technology consulting, information architecture and web CMS and CRM platform development expertise to each project. Eric is very active in nonprofit, philanthropy and technology circles, having served as co-chair to the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network in San Francisco, on the National Advisory Board
for the Addiction Technology Transfer Center, and as a member of NTEN and the Tech Underground.

Course Schedule
All sessions take place Thursdays from 1-2:30 PM Eastern.

May 7: Asking the Right Questions
Simply collecting data is not enough. Deciding early on what you will do with that data—and why you want it in the first place—will help you to define goals and approaches. We’ll talk through how to define your organization’s own data-based metrics strategy from the ground up.

May 14: Hunting Down the Data
More often than not, the most useful data won’t be found already neatly laid out in a spreadsheet. You might find extremely valuable data in handwritten staff notes, in multiple software systems, or public repositories. We’ll discuss where different data can live, which sources of data might be useful, and where and how you can collect it to be ready for analysis.

May 21: Making Use of Your Data
In the final course, we will discuss the various ways you will need to manage and use the data you’ve collected. We’ll consider the logistics of entering, storing, and maintaining your data. We’ll also look at how to develop an action plan that ensures your data program is useful and
sustainable.

Important Information
Idealware will send the access code and dial-in information for the webinar to the email address you use to register. All registered participants will have access to recordings of each session. Participants who cannot attend any of the sessions due to scheduling conflicts will still have
access to the course presentation decks and handouts.

Register:https://offers.techimpact.org/nonprofit-data-for-beginners-0