For many organizations, building internal data capacity and capabilities can be a challenge. Where do you start? What knowledge and skills do you need? How do you find the right people to meet your data and team needs?
As a small nonprofit, we’ve faced these questions ourselves and have helped other organizations answer these questions and build the data capabilities they need. One of the organizations we’ve helped is FaithActs for Education, a “grassroots community organizing nonprofit based in Bridgeport, Connecticut.”
Seeking to boost their internal data capabilities, FaithActs turned to the expertise and knowledge of the School and State Finance Project to assist them in the development and hiring of a data manager who would oversee, and build out, the organization’s data systems.
Working in collaboration with FaithActs’ senior leadership, our Data Team assisted in the creation of the job description for the data manager position by giving recommendations on key responsibilities for the position, and providing an optimal candidate profile for the position.
Once a position description was finalized, our team created a technical skills exercise for prospective data manager candidates to ensure candidates were aligned to the needs of FaithActs. The skills exercise contained sample work scenarios the data manager would likely be involved with at FaithActs, and included a sample dataset with data similar to that found in FaithActs’ CRM. To help FaithActs leadership evaluate candidate responses, our also team developed sample responses and rubrics for the skills exercise.
In addition to developing a candidate skills exercise, our team developed a series of technical questions and sample responses for FaithActs to use during interviews, and assessed skills exercise submissions to ensure candidates met the necessary skills. We also participated in a candidate interview and provided feedback to FaithActs’ leadership to ensure the organization’s needs were being met, and that FaithActs was set up for the data capabilities it had been looking for.
Due in part to our team’s efforts, FaithActs achieved its goal of hiring a qualified and skilled data manager, which has allowed the organization to provide program analyses to stakeholders, expand and customize internal data systems, and better support internal decision-making processes with facts and data.
