We’ve all sat through meetings with gritted teeth, thinking, “When will they get to the information that I need?”
Each of us views our work through our own unique lens. We go through our workdays with an automatic filter in place that screens information flowing in our environment for the nuggets specific to what we need to better do our jobs. That’s why it can be so frustrating when information comes at us that’s clearly not something we need. We have to spend time thinking, considering, discarding, or sending on that information to those who may need it, and that’s time that could be better spent elsewhere.
What Are Dashboards?
Dashboards are visual displays of key information and analytics. The purpose of dashboards is to combine and extract results, then display them in useful visual formats. With systems such as AccuFund, where dashboards can be generated from within the system, this information is displayed in role-based business intelligence and data visualizations that makes it much easier to use and extrapolate important conclusions from the information available in the system.
Why Are Nonprofit Dashboards Important?
Consider how much data is flowing through your organization’s systems right now. At this very moment, depending on your nonprofit and its mission, you may have data coming into the system from:
• Accounting – accounts payables and receivables, fund updates, grant information, donor funds, payroll, and more
• Marketing – donor relations activities, incoming queries, customer service, communications, public relations
• Operations – systems and analysis, human resources, resource tracking, and more
• Fundraising – revenue by source, progress to fundraising goal, individual giving (restricted vs. unrestricted), fundraising event comparison, annual fundraising forecast
Some nonprofits handle even greater amounts of data. A nonprofit animal rescue might need to track number of animals by species, their location, their adoption, and health status. Educational nonprofits may need warehouse and inventory software to track workbooks and educational materials. Health nonprofits may need to track statistics on patients, healthcare workers, supplies, and more.
The amount of data that one nonprofit generates can be enormous. That’s why nonprofit dashboards are so important. Through business intelligence and data visualization, that steady stream of numbers, facts, and figures takes shape into graphic representations that bridge the gap between analyzing raw numbers (which many people are unable to do) and viewing pictorial representations, such as pie graphs, bar charts, line graphs, and so on.
Importance of Data Visualization in Nonprofit Dashboards
Data visualization helps shorten the time it takes to grasp important points. It helps organizations make faster, better decisions by quickly showing:
1. Correlations: Without data visualization, it is nearly impossible to demonstrate correlations in relationships within data. Visualizations can make it clear which correlations appear within independent variables.
2. Trends over time: Just knowing the amount of donations per year is important, but seeing it trend dramatically upwards on a line graph can motivate, inspire, and tell a much more important story than columns of numbers.
3. Reactions: Data visualizations can help nonprofits demonstrate market or donor reactions. Consider a dashboard that depicts response rates to several donor campaigns. It’s much easier to see which campaign elicited the better response if they’re side by side as bars in a graph rather than columns of numbers.
4. Frequency: It’s easier to assess the frequency of an action, such as use of a nonprofit’s services or donations, in a pictorial form than in numbers only.
One important aspect of using data visualizations in nonprofit dashboards is to ensure that the dashboards are customizable, that is, displaying information pertaining to the viewer’s role. Displaying too many extraneous variables and information is not only unhelpful but may even “lose” the main message from the data. Having the capability to customize dashboards by user role is essential to good data usage.
Data to Measure and Achieve KPIs
KPI stands for key performance indicators. These measures are established by an organization at set periods, usually at the start of the fiscal year, and provide a yardstick by which success can be measured.
Although there are many ways to measure progress towards goals, KPIs offer a standard way to benchmark progress. Because they can help nonprofits assess where they are in relation to goals, they can be used to adjust course, if necessary, and adapt to situations as they arise. A common question is then “Will this activity help us achieve our KPIs?” which can be used to make decisions. If something will help achieve the goal, it is chosen; if not, it may be avoided.
KPIs are only useful if they meet certain criteria. Like SMART goals, they must be clearly defined, quantifiable, and actionable. They must be practical as well as adaptable. And they must always help an organization meet its objectives and fulfill its mission. KPIs, for the sake of just having KPIs, should be avoided, unless they can be linked to the organization’s mission.
Grouping Nonprofit KPIs
One common way to manage multiple KPIs is to group them according to area of impact. For example, KPIs can be grouped according to marketing efforts, donors and gift targets, financial (cash trend, days payable, quick ratio, LUNA, etc), organizational growth, impact targets, and so on.
Using Dashboards to Measure Progress Towards KPIs
Once you have your KPIs established, you can now use customized dashboards to measure progress towards KPIs. Each department or manager is likely to have slightly different needs, but all can measure what’s needed through customized dashboards. Instead of experiencing information overwhelm, managers can experience information that’s organized and depicted in visual ways that are easier to understand.
About AccuFund
AccuFund understands your dashboard and reporting challenges. AccuFund’s browser-native system (and onsite system) ensures that role-based nonprofit dashboards are available to help you save valuable time. They display the information that you need for your role and avoid superfluous, distracting information. It ensures that the information you need to do your job is right there, at your fingertips, with accurate, timely information.
Learn more about AccuFund and how its customizable dashboard feature puts accurate, timely data visualizations at everyone’s fingertips.
AccuFund solutions are available online or onsite.
Related Materials
Dashboard Dynamics. Creating & Perfecting Insightful Nonprofit Dashboards. On-Demand Webinar