Whether your organization is one month or 100 years old, the common denominator all nonprofits share is a high return on the investment of democratizing data. But a data democracy doesn’t mean “data all the things.” There are a daunting number of frameworks and data sources to define how your organization impacts the world. Impact matters to the volunteers, donors, and foundations that invest time and money into your cause, and to the staff that pours their energy into making the organization’s (digital) presence run. This workshop presentation will share the journey other nonprofits like PowerPoetry.org, CrisisTextLine.org, have taken to reach outsized impact for their size by using data. Workshop participants will learn strategies to measure their organization’s impact, and be invited to share their wins with democratizing data internally as well as posing challenges in their organization. (Presented at YTH Live 2019)

2. George Weiner
Whole Whale | Power Poetry
george@WholeWhale.com

3. Who am I?
George Weiner
● Chief Whaler of Whole Whale
● Co-Founder Power Poetry
● Chair of America’s Charities
● Former CTO of DoSomething.org
And a confused new dad

4. Contents
Models and measures for digital impact
Where does traffic come from?
Measurements and dashboards
Why do you have a website?

5. How did you get here?

6. Journeys can tell the story and
present opportunities to help

8. Shaped by your communities
on and offline
Your searches
Digitally and IRL
Your insta feed

9. Per Day...
3.5 Hours (U.S.) 5.6 billion searches (world)
Source: Pew Internet 2018, Google 2018

10. Online search/behavior
Offline thought Offline action
Why Offline to Offline

11. Case studies used

12. DIGITAL IMPACT CHASM

13. “We’re lost, but at least
we’re making great
time”
- Leap of Reason

14. DIGITAL LOGIC MODEL
Input:
What you invest
Output:
What you make
● Content
● PDF guides
● Training videos
● Social
● Users
● Downloads
● Time Watched
● Poems
Outcome:
What you expect to happen
Short-term
● “Super” poets
● Guides read
Long-term
● Improved literacy

15. “... information consumes the
attention of its recipients.
Hence a wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention”
- Herbert Simon

16. ● Specific
● Measurable
● Actionable
● Relevant
● Time Bound
● Valid
● Understandable
GOOD INDICATORS

17. IMPACT MARKETING FUNNEL

18. Traffic & Off Platform Impression
Awareness
Goal
Metrics
● # Site users by source
● Organic Sessions
● Video views
● Social Reach
Teens find PP online

19. Change
Goal
Metrics
● Qualitative improvement
of super poet’s work over
time
Longterm
● College rates
● Prison rates
Increased youth literacy
Increased literacy &
emotional expression

20. Activity: Draw this funnel

21. LEVELOFCOMMITMENT
TIME ENGAGED
Low-barrier
actions
Medium-barrier
actions
High-barrier
actions
LIKE
SHARE
SIGN UP
CONTRIBUTE
DONATE $$
ATTEND
VIEW
$1.46 per email*
$65 per donor*
$0.48 per click*
*Data Source: AdStage and M+R nonprofit benchmarks 2018
Digital Commitment Curve

22. Game: When I say go...
Raise your hand OR Stand up

23. Game: When I say go...
Stand up OR Do a push-up

24. Laziness Curve
LEVELOF
COMMITMENT
TIME ENGAGED
low-barrier
actions
COMMITMENT CURVE
medium-barrier
actions
high-barrier
actions
Stand up
Push-up
Raise your hand
Do nothing

25. Tactic: Anchoring
$2.50$5.50 $6.50 $4.50

26. LEVELOFCOMMITMENT
TIME ENGAGED
Low-barrier
actions
Medium-barrier
actions
High-barrier
actions
LIKE
SHARE
SIGN UP
CONTRIBUTE
DONATE $$
ATTEND
VIEW
Activity: Draw your curve

27. “Any more than 3 KPIs
is a circus”
-Peter F. Drucker

28. WHAT TO MEASURE?

29. ● Poets/Poems ● Literacy
improvement
● Content
Visits
● Public
opinion of
poetry

30. ● Organ registry
● Sentiment
around donation
● Twitter followers

31. Activity: Draw and
plot 3-5 KPIs
Frequency of measure

32. Where does traffic come from?

34. 6 Sources of Traffic

35. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Write content that answers a question people have
WholeWhale.com/University
Code: IMPACT

36. Tip: Google.com/Trends

37. Grew monthly web traffic by 900% by
maximizing Google Adwords, new communications
and SEO strategies, and a website redesign
Case Study
National Aphasia Association
9x traffic

38. Google Ad Grants
$10k PER month in search ads!
google.com/nonprofits
wholewhale.com/adwords

39. 0 to 420,000 teen poets in 6 years
In-kind Ad Grant value:
Traffic & Acquisition Case Study
Power Poetry

40. Show for critical need searches that drive
texters in crisis.
Crisis Text Line

41. How is it measured?

42. What is ?
Google.com/analytics
● Free, Web analytics for your website
● Javascript that lives on every page
● Every website codebase can handle this
● Takes less than 30min to install
● Shows what/where/how/when activities on your
website (not so much why)

43. analytics.facebook.com

44. Goals/Events

45. ?
Gather
AnalyzeInsights
Learn &
Act
Ask
Questions

46. Q: What are people doing on our site?
Is a bad, broad question…
Leaving on weekends, returning during the week
Coming from major cities
Coming from 4 major sources of traffic
Bouncing from our homepage 60-80%
Increasing when we send our emails

47. Good Questions
Where is the front door of our website?
How is our organic traffic YoY?
How is traffic converting to goals?
Ask your team what they need to know.

48. Q: Where is our ‘front door’?
AKA where are most people landing on our site as their first
page?
Only 4.6%

49. Action: fix your real front door
Make every page work toward your goals.

50. How is organic traffic YoY?
● Are we growing/flat/declining?
● Month vs Month last year
● What % total?

51. Action
● Set up Google Search Console and connect to GA!
● Explore keywords and content that are working or declining
● Do an SEO audit
● Learn more about SEO/Content Marketing
WholeWhale.com/university free code: IMPACT (for uDemy courses)

52. Results

53. Why do you have a website?

54. The spectrum of nonprofit websites
Brochure Digitally reliant

55. Thought to action
Google Ad
Grant
SEO
content

56. Thought to action
Google Ad
Grant

57. Traffic vs Impact

58. Attribution

59. Steal this data studio dashboard
wholewhale.com/dashboard

60. Final Thought

61. Democratize your Data

62. Your work matters when heard

63. In NGOs We Trust

64. Your work matters,
We need you to be heard

65. Online is Offline

66. WholeWhale.com/podcast