39 | Use Your Data Creatively

We collect a lot of data about our donors and constituents. And we put that data to good use in crafting our messages and appeals and our stewardship. We focus on this data so much that we have a hard time seeing past it. A hard time seeing the forest for the trees. Today we have a conversation with a pair of advancement services technologists who took a step back and looked at the forest instead of the trees. They took a simple question, answerable by their data, and turned the answer into a tool to solve their curiosity and a solution for the world to use.   Guests: Clare Buttry and Carrick Davis University of Northern Colorado Alumni Dashboard : https://www.unco.edu/alumni/bears-go-big/ Sankey Diagram : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram  Edward Tufte and the famous use of Sankey-style in a chart : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte      00:00 - Using your Data Creatively 01:10 - Clare Buttry and Carrick Davis 03:01 - What problem is data trying to solve? 11:05 - It doesn't have to be complicated 15:39 - Bears Go Big - the tool described 19:15 - Data Clutter and Efficiency 26:28 - Advancement Services is the right spot 31:27 - See the little lightbulb turn on