Send us a text

This podcast episode delves into the critical challenges that social purpose organizations face in simplifying data collection and management for both internal and external data sources. It highlights how data often becomes scattered across multiple systems, making it difficult to unify and analyze for meaningful impact.

The discussion explores common approaches like CRM systems, spreadsheets, and data warehousing tools, outlining their respective limitations. For instance, while CRM systems can be comprehensive, they often require deep customization and may end up functioning merely as data collection tools. Spreadsheets, though flexible, are prone to data integrity issues, and data warehousing tools can be expensive and require specialized teams.

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the unique challenges of collecting data from external partners, such as grantees and applicants. These challenges include issues with unique identification for tracking progress over time, problems with incomplete documentation, and the time-consuming nature of manual data entry. Traditional methods like surveys and forms are often stateless, making it difficult to follow up with individuals or link data over time unless a unique ID system is in place.

The speakers introduce an innovative approach to external data collection and workflow automation aimed at saving organizations time and effort in data cleanup and management. They emphasize the importance of designing data collection processes with unique identifiers from the outset to enable pre- and post-program analysis and prevent data duplication.

The episode also touches upon the necessity of having the right data skills, technology knowledge, and impact management skills within an organization to effectively manage data initiatives.

Finally, the discussion introduces SoPact Sense, a platform designed as a smart data warehouse to unify data from various internal and external systems. This approach aims to be more flexible and easier to implement than traditional CRM-based solutions, enabling organizations to transform, score, translate, and benchmark their data. The episode also mentions a practical video course offered by SoPact to help organizations implement a reliable impact measurement process.