The article explores what non-profits can learn from the Obama campaign about the need to collect and analyze data..

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.