When an organization overlooks its data asset value then there are adverse actions like inefficiencies, rising costs, and wrong decision-making. For organizations, this is not good but for causes and charities, this is the worst news. 

Data governance can make a huge difference and empower them to support more causes. Charities find it hard to get data governance training but they can approach EWSolutions, a data literacy consultant firm. Good management is possible even if it seems an overwhelming and daunting task. 

Choose your data

When charities bid for funding, they are asked to demonstrate their service impact. Therefore, choose the data and reports needed in the earliest stage. Agree on what you require to assemble for different stakeholders. 

• Internal reporting & service performance management.
• External audiences & funders.
• Frontline staff working with beneficiaries.

Keep everything simple. Record the essential things right from the start. You can communicate with similar charitable trusts and find out what system they use and what they record. This will help you in coming up with the best strategy to proceed further with your idea.

Data management resources

Small charities need basic data governance skills for implementing a good data management system. You can find an array of resources associated with data management on the internet worth reading. The team that will develop the system has to understand the frontline staff works and the data needs for internal & external stakeholders. Determine the budget and staff time needed to create and run a data governance system.

Create a system

Small charities need a simple Access database or a spreadsheet to record and analyze clients’ data. Large charities need customizable online structures like In-Form. Before you start building a system, consider what answers you desire from the report and how. These parameters will help you in building a database design on how to capture or extract the data.

Create a user-friendly system

Frontline staff will record the data, to ensure that the created system is user-friendly. Charities have a support staff, so the system needs to be simple to record and run data reports. Outside support like data training can occur via clear written instructions or telephone.

Data use and analysis

Besides regular reporting you will need to conduct data analysis often. It helps to understand your services and users' performance. Analysis can be simple like group data categorization and comparing the counts and percentages on a spreadsheet. 

There are plenty of aspects you can evaluate like – who achieves positive outcomes – men or women? Or which causes do clients support more – floods or aids? It can help to enhance your services as well as reveal your charity impacts to existing and potential funders. 

Data maintenance and improvement

For a charity, monitoring the missing or incorrect data, as well as data usage analysis is essential to obtain high-quality data. Regular system reviews, feedback from system stakeholders & users, enhancing existing fields as well as adding new services if needed is valuable for successful data governance in your charity institution.