 Happy Monday and thanks to all of you for joining us today. We're going to hear and talk and learn from Nate Alfin, principal with Ida Bailey, and Nate is going to share with us how your nonprofit is really a data organization. So if you're not connecting the dots, make sure you stay tuned because Nate is going to connect those dots for you and excited to have him during today's episode. Also excited to be alongside Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, always your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. And Julie and I like to extend our greatest appreciation to our presenting sponsors. You can see those logos and company names right in front of you. I always like to recommend that you check them out, but please not yet do it as soon as we shut down from our conversation with Nate today. These conversations are also data organizations and they are here to help you move your mission goals forward. So please do check them out. Nate, welcome. We are so glad to have you here on the show again, Nate Alfin, principal with Ida Bailey. Welcome. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate you both having me on. Excited to be here. You know, we're excited about this because you're saying some things that we haven't heard before. And when that happens, I have two thoughts. One is our guest, like out in the left field, they don't know what they're talking about. Or two, are we out in the left field and we're way behind and we don't know what we should be talking about. Okay, so there's two ways. Well, we'll hope it's the latter. Hopefully there's some things to share here that are beneficial. Okay, well, set me straight. I'm Bailey, a nationally recognized firm. 25, 30% of your business works with the nonprofit sector if I'm not mistaken. And you're a heavy hitter in the accounting world. And you're here to tell us that data is not just for as we like to call them the bean counters. I mean, what's that? It's a crazy thought here. But we are, Ida Bailey is traditionally a top 20 CPA firm and doing a lot of things for folks on both the tax and the assurance and audit side. And our group is, we're very tied into those groups and we work with those partners a lot and the staff there. But we also work with organizations that are trying to figure out what is the data. They say that data and the creation of data is accelerating faster than we can keep up with it. We're creating data faster than has ever been created. There'll be more data created today than there's ever been created in any day. And it's only becoming faster in the way that it's accelerating. So when we look, when we talk to organizations and we're talking to them about their taxes or their audits and their assurance, oftentimes data comes up as something that's something that they don't feel like they're leveraging. They're not doing enough with their information within the organization. And it's kind of like you sometimes are surprised to understand that we have that capability. We have that competency. And so it starts really good conversations with them about, yes, there's a lot of great data in my accounting system that I'm using. And generally, they feel like for the most part, they can make pretty decent decisions about closing the books, generating financial statements, those types of things. But when it comes to looking beyond the financial statements, that's where they oftentimes feel like they're behind in what they should be doing. I feel like in the nonprofit sector, many of us feel like we're often behind, right? Curious, because you made a very profound statement that there will be more data generated today than any other day previously. And that is overwhelming. So how do we even manage the consumption of this data? It's a great question. And the reality is, is if you do try to look at it and say, well, we have all this information that can't become overwhelming. But if you take a look at your organization, you say, what are our goals? What are the things we're trying to accomplish? And how am I going to wrangle the data together that's going to help me tell that story? That's probably the thing that I see as one of the biggest opportunities the nonprofits have is to say, what is my mission? What are the things that I'm trying to accomplish? And how can I tell that story? How can I know if I am accomplishing that mission? And one of the key ways to do that is to leverage the data that you have to say, we are accomplishing the mission that we have as a nonprofit. I think that's one of the things, one of the reasons I love working with nonprofits. They have such a clear vision. They know what they're trying to accomplish. They know the passion that's driving them. But how do they tell that story, whether it's to donors, whether it's to investors, people that are tied into that organization, how can they take the data that they have in their systems and tell that story to say, look, we are accomplishing, we're making progress on the mission that we have. And to me, that's really the value. When we talk about the value that there is for data for nonprofits, that's really where I see the value as being able to tell that story. And then also empower those within your organization to say, yes, we are making the progress, or maybe we're not making the progress that we wanted to. And so what are the changes we need to make to make sure that we're staying focused on that vision that we believe in, and that we believe our donors and those that believe in our organization are believing in this world. So you've got to explain this to me, because you say nonprofit data analytics are like restaurants. Okay, now throw it at us and let's see if this sticks. Yeah, I this is this is something that I, it helps me I'm kind of small minded. So I need, I need things that help me bring it to my, you know, kind of the front of my mind. And when I look at an organization, I think a lot when it comes to how you want people to perceive your organization and how you want to allow data to tell a story about your organization. It is a lot like a restaurant in the sense that, you know, restaurant has in my mind three main components, you've got an area in a restaurant where you bring in raw food that you eventually want to prepare. And, and then you've, and so that's kind of your pantry or your storage area where you keep that. And then you've got on the other side of the restaurant, you've got this dining area where you want your patrons to come in and have a great experience, you want them to want them to fill the ambiance, you want the food to come out and be well presented and taste great and be consumed and, and all of this. And then in the middle of this, you've got this kitchen, which is really the, the nerve center of the restaurant. And if things aren't going well in the kitchen, you're not going to, you know, those coming to the restaurant are not going to have a good experience. So when you think of data being in kind of that, you know, the way that data moves through an organization can be a lot like a restaurant, you've got a lot of systems that you're using to run your organization, transactional type systems, whether it's a CRM or you're tracking your, your donors or your, your, your, those that you're working with within your nonprofit, whether it's your accounting system where you're tracking the data or you're tracking your transactions and your accounting for everything and producing financial statements, whether it's your fundraising system that you use to track your donors and what they're bringing in. All of that is, all of that data is kind of locked away. You think of it kind of in the raw format like a pantry, but to make sense of that, of a lot of that data, you've got to combine it together. And that's where, you know, you've got to have this idea of a kitchen where you can bring those raw things together, combine them and curate them so that when you have somebody, whether it's an outside person, whether it's a frontline staff within your organization, they want to come and consume that. They're going to have a much better experience with that data and that information if it's been curated, if it's been brought together and presented in a nice way so that they can consume it easily. So that's, that's the way I like to think about it. And if you've got that kind of set up and going in your organization, that can really make a huge difference in how people feel about, you know, data and how, and their access to it and how, you know, the experience they're having with it. This makes me think that you're probably a foodie. I'm going to take it a little further because I've never had anyone refer to it like a restaurant, but I'm with you. I'm tracking this. And then we have these online reviews, right? And then we have this external component of the transparency of this data, right? Using this analytics in a very transparent manner, you know, there's many, as we refer to them as charity watchdog kind of platform where we can access this data and it's really combined and brought together from the IRS and other external, you know, entities. So, Julia, I'm curious now, if you're tracking and buying into this restaurant analogy. Yeah, because I think, you know, it's raw materials, it's production, and then it's sales. I mean, basically, if you look at it like that. And so in between there, I mean, when you think about it, we do that in the nonprofit sector, you know, we have our raw materials, what our problems are, we pull them together with our resources, and then we try and deliver a product ultimately to have consumer satisfaction between our clients and our donors and our communities and all that. And so I think that's a good way to look at it, because otherwise, Nate, it seems like data is in the realm of the accounting department or those cubicles over there, and we don't really go over there, and we don't really understand how to read those crazy reports. And so I want to ask you this question, and that is, can this data have value, maybe like, dare I say outside the accounting department? Or how do we look at this? Because you put this in a new context for me. Yeah, great question. I do believe it has value. And, you know, the interesting thing is, is you mentioned those people over there in the cubicles, you know, that have we all think I think what we're kind of referring to there is maybe it, right? They're the people that maintain those systems that hold that information, they understand the technical side, but then you've got the finance or accounting side of the business that really is interested in how are we performing? How are we doing? And then you've got this executive level that's saying, we're responsible for driving the overall mission of this organization and making sure that it's moving forward. And so the value that I see is that generally, you know, it's this, it's in bringing of this information together, you know, each of these, we call them sometimes silos of data, each of these silos of information, they have value within their own context, but oftentimes the more of those silos that you can combine and bring together, that's where the value really starts to come up. You know, I've been working with several nonprofits over the last few months on their data strategies and what they're trying to accomplish. And the value for them is in combining both their, let's say a social program combined with something that's happening within maybe a community that they're working with. And those social components combined with maybe a housing area where they're living and how are those social programs impacting people's lives? Those are things that can only be measured if you're able to bring these silos of information together because those programs are being administered in different systems. And so if you can't combine those together, you're not going to really see the value, but that's where we're seeing that value come out is when we can say, look, we did this, we provided this program, this function, and that meant that we had better stability in our communities and that meant that kids were staying in school and they were graduating and people were staying in their homes and those types of things. That is something where we really see the value come out in combining that. So that's what I see. And it may be in the round-profit world, and maybe it's when you say value is a little bit different. You know, within the corporate America, maybe we see value as our, maybe we see that as profits to the bottom line where with nonprofits, the value that I see is we're accomplishing our mission and we're driving it forward. And we continue to be a viable organization because we can show that we're making the progress that we're trying to make. And I think that's really valid when we talk about value. It's the tangible, it's the intangible, how I hear it. And one of the things I would like to draw attention to, because I'm sure a lot of people's data, and I would like by the end of tomorrow's episode, if we can determine, is it data or data? Age old. No, tomato, tomato, data. But really determining, you know, over the last two years, a lot of our data has been changed because we weren't able to serve the same amount of individuals or constituents that we had previously served. So how do we report that impact if the numbers have in fact decreased? There's a lot of changes. You know, I'm going back to the statement because I've never heard it and I'm sure we'll hear it more. Is there is more data being consumed today than any other day, you know, prior? So this information, this is narrative, this is ways in how we can share the value and the impact of our organization to draw in, you know, additional investors, overall supporters. Yeah, you know, Nate, following along that line, and I think Jared's so right, because we know that modern donors and social investors are very data enticed. You know, the emotional side that we used to present our nonprofits with is really not having the impact that it once did, because we have more educated, more intellectual investors and they want the data and they respond to that. And so the nonprofits, we can't just be telling the Kisser Cry stories. They need to be, you know, giving that. So you talk about data sources in the data lake. So we're at the restaurant, are we overlooking a lake? Yes, of course. Sure, you know, yes, we're overlooking the lake. Now, these sources, you know, when I talk about these silos, you know, these, we're finding, and I'm going to probably terribly misquote this, but we're finding the average organization is has over 10, maybe over 15 different sources of information that they have, that has exploded, where, you know, maybe 10 years ago, they had one or two core systems that they were operating out of, but with the explosion of cloud and cloud computing and applications that come, we're finding organizations moving and changing systems that they use at a rapid pace. And so the number of systems that they're working out of, I'm just wrapping up an engagement with it with an on profit. And we outlined over 15, closer to 20 source systems that they're working out of. And it's really hard if you don't have a strategy for bringing all those sources together. And this is what we can refer to as the data lake is this is bringing that information out of those core systems and getting it centralized into a centralized location where then we can begin working with it and drawing these relationships and correlating this information so that we can start, rather than having a lot of data, we've got information, we've got valuable insights we can create. But if you can't bring all this information out of those, a lot of those insights will stay locked away in those sources. And as those, as the number of these systems continue to grow, this problem is going to continue to grow as well. And so that's why having a strategy about how we're going to bring this data or information together, and then curated in a way that we can then surface it to the executive levels or to these frontline staff to make better and more informed decisions. This problem or this challenge is just going to continue to grow. So when we talk about these data sources in the data lake, it's really like what is our strategy to say, okay, it's okay if we feel like we need to bring in a new system to help one of our departments to do their job. But what's our strategy to make sure that that information that they're creating is not locked away in that system, and that it can be brought out and benefited for the entire organization? You know, Jared and I talk about this a lot, and I think that this has been really apparent to me since we started the nonprofit show, and that's that old adage, you don't know what you don't know. And so I'm really curious as we kind of don't have too much time, but how do we, as an organization, when we are up to our elbows, trying to navigate our mission, vision and values, and we're trying to serve our clients, and we're trying to make sales, which are, you know, acquisition of donors and in philanthropic investment, how do we even begin to understand the link between data and really navigate our C-suite and even our teams to understand that this is a value? Great question. You know, it's amazing to me every time I meet with, and with most of the nonprofits that I meet with, I meet with most of their departments, I meet with the executive team, I meet with their different departments, and it's amazing to me how often the things that they really care about come off their tongues really quickly. They know, they know what's important, but then they turn to me and they say, but I don't know, I don't know how to get to that information. I don't know, you know, I know that if I could measure this thing, I could improve the way that we're serving our clients, whether we're pushing things forward. So they know what they are, the challenge is I don't know where that information is, and I don't know how to unlock it. And so obviously that's why they come to us to say, what is that we need to do? What does that strategy do? We need to put in place to bring that information together so that now that we know, and so, you know, we spend a lot of time with them outlining, okay, here are the things that are important to this group. And then of course, the executive team has their own initiatives and the things that are important. Generally, they roll up pretty, pretty clearly there. There's not usually any surprises at the executive level that the, you know, departments aren't aware of. But if we can help them put that process in place, it's really generally getting access to the information, making sure that it's accurate, that it's accessible, that it's actionable. If we can accomplish those three things, then generally they feel like I'm much more empowered than I was before. I knew what I needed to do, but I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get the information I needed to make good informed decisions. And I'm thinking also, as you speak of this, really the translation and the archiving of this institutional knowledge. I'm curious how often you would recommend that we pull and analyze our data. Is this a quarterly activity, monthly, weekly, daily? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, there's no right answer here. What I will tell you is, I think tomorrow we're going to talk a little bit about maturity and organizations as they mature with their information. But generally, we find organizations that are more mature with their data, they're pulling and archiving that data more frequently on a more regular basis. Generally, organizations will start with monthly, maybe sometimes weekly, but as they get more mature and they understand that they have access to this type of information, they want to see it more frequently. And so oftentimes, there will be some organizations that will really, or sorry, some departments that will want to see that information refreshed on a daily basis. Now, you could always, you can even go more frequently than that. If there were things that were really important, let's say we were doing a big campaign and we wanted to see donations coming in as they come in. And it was more of a really timely thing. You could even see maybe every hour, you know, seeing information, but generally speaking, the more mature organizations are looking at information generally being refreshed on a daily basis. Okay, mind blown officially. You know, Nate, before we leave you today, I'm really curious if you could kind of give us an idea on how we can determine or assess how, two things, how, what are the data points that we're missing? And then how do we engage and act them, act upon them so that we are doing this? Because I talk with a lot of nonprofits, even pretty good-sized nonprofits, they're like, yeah, we don't even know really where to go to get this help or this information. And, you know, we don't really know what this looks like. And the people that we are, you know, consulting with are all, you know, we're drilling down into our donor base and our fundraising. I mean, this is going to be another professional engagement. It's not really going to necessarily dovetail right to your fundraising, right? Not necessarily. It is a different endeavor because you're looking at your organization. You're saying we have created a bit of chaos with the information that we have. We often talk about organizations going from chaos to order, you know, and that really, from a data perspective, I would guarantee nine out of 10 organizations that you talk to would probably indicate that they feel like they're more in chaos than they are in order when it comes to their information. And that's not necessarily any fault of them, you know, organizationally not being well run or well put together. It's just not something that people think about when they go to start an organization. They're not sitting down thinking, what's my data strategy? I wish they were. I think it'd be a great thing to think about, but it's just logically it's not the first thing that they think about. And so what happens is they grow as an organization, they begin to scale, and then they realize, wow, I don't have access to all the things that I want. And so really the process is simply, you know, you can look internally, you can say, look, we need to bring in somebody that can really think about this strategically for organization. Or you can turn to somebody like our organization that can come in and say, let us hold your hand as we go through this, and let us focus on the things that are most important to your organization. And let's work backwards. Let's go find that data. Let's go find that information. Let's bring it together. Let's stitch it together. And then let's start telling the story that we really want either our outside investors or internal folks to really be able to tell. So what I hear you saying is it's probably this process, if it's going to be fully functional, is going to start with an assessment. It almost always does. It almost always does. And it's hard to not go down that path because you want to keep value ahead of cost. You know, nobody wants to invest millions of dollars into some big project when they're not exactly sure what the outcome is going to be. And so a lot of the assessment is to go in and make sure that we tell that story that we say, look, here are the key initiatives. We've met with the business. We understand what they want. Now let's go and find that information. And let's look at what the level of effort is going to be to create a data lake, to create a working kitchen in the organization where they feel like data is not only being created, but is being curated and then presented to the organization in a way that they can make great decisions. So without that assessment, it's really difficult to go down that path. Okay, last question. And this is a big one. And this is like teed up curveball. What is a logical budget size for an organization to say, we're going to start working on this? I mean, is there a place, a starting point that you would recommend? From an assessment standpoint? Yeah. Yes, I think so. You know, generally what we see is the assessments for an organization are generally going to be anywhere from the 10, 15, $20,000 range for that initial, you know, to come in and we're talking about enough hours to spend enough time with the business and the organization and the groups to really understand what they're doing. And, you know, I would say, I would say 10 to $15,000 is kind of that sweet spot where we really can spend enough time to feel like we've mapped out, you know, the appropriate steps and they feel like that there's going to be enough value. So that's generally what we see there. Now, certainly with a large organization, it could be much more than that if we felt like there was more, you know, we needed to meet with more folks and there was more going on there. But that's generally a good area where we can start and we can provide them enough that they feel like there's value there. And I was going to add, I've seen more and more in funding opportunities to request finding work for these assessments to take place. And so seeing the value of the data is really, I think, coming more mainstream in these funding and social investor conversations. So it makes it much more palatable to say, okay, yes, this is going to take on average 15,000. And this is how it is setting us up for success. Having the data, using the value of the data as we continue to move forward in trajectory of our mission driven goals. So I thank you for throwing that number out there and for watching, thinking where are we going to come up with this? I encourage you to have conversations with your funders. Yeah. And maybe the last point I'll just make there is that there's so many, the pain that I see a lot of organizations going through to try to provide some of this information. If we can alleviate that and make it more of a streamlined process, you're going to have happier employees. It's harder right now to retain employees, people that want to work with your organization. If you can make their jobs easier and make things more streamlined, it's just better for everyone. Get them focused on higher value things that they can provide the organization rather than just copying and pasting things into spreadsheets all day. Right next to iBailey helping me through this project. I'm curious if this is an all remote opportunity or if it's done in person as well, because I know iBailey serves across the nation. We do. I would say generally, especially in the environment that we're in still right now, that we're primarily remote, though we do come on site and we are in a lot of markets across the western part of the U.S. And so if we are available in market, we're happy to come on site. But I would say the expectation right now, at least in the current environment, we would be primarily remote. But we've had very successful engagements remote. I personally, I love being in person. I love meeting folks and I love that relationship aspect. But there's no need to let that limit us to what we did. I met with an entire, you know, nonprofit recently, and I never met any of their departments in person. I did it all. And we were able to develop good relationships and so it's very possible and technology is making that possible, though I hope there's a day when we're back in person. But yeah, thank you so much to iBailey. Nate often joins us today and will join us tomorrow. So we are so glad to have you with us, Nate, for all of you that have joined us. Julia Patrick, so good to be with you this Monday. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd. And again, thank you to our presenting sponsors. We are so very lucky to have your investment in the sector at large, not just these episodes, but truly as a partner in and around each and every community across the nation and some even globally. So thank you to our sponsors. It's been amazing. You know, Nate, we're very fortunate and this doesn't happen very often, but we're going to have you back with us tomorrow because we want to continue exploring this conversation. It's really one of those vital things. And as our nonprofits are planning for next year, dare I say 2022, I think you're going to give us some ideas of how we can really fulfill this need and this path that we all need to be taking. So thank you so much. It's been great to get my mind blown yet again on the nonprofit show. Thank you, Julia and Jared. I appreciate your time. Hey, it's been great. As we end every episode, we want to remind everyone to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone.