Our client—a local chapter of a nonprofit organization that provides voluntary after-school programs for young people—engaged North Highland to bolster its data acquisition and insights capabilities. The nonprofit sought to improve its target market share by gathering insights requirements, acquiring and preparing data, and building a dashboard that would help key stakeholders visualize the insights to make better decisions. These efforts helped our client achieve its goal of accessing a wider market of underserved youth within two neighboring counties in the U.S.
Client Situation
Our client estimated that at least 40,000 underserved youth in its counties could benefit from structured, supervised afterschool and summer programs and activities to keep them safe and healthy. It responded by creating a five-year strategic plan with the goal of doubling the number of youth served to 10,000 by 2026.
North Highland’s experts then partnered with the local nonprofit to uncover the zip codes the underserved youth live in and the various demographic factors that affect their lives, including but not limited to family dynamics, household income, discipline records, and graduation rates.
Our Approach
Our team took the lead in creating a customizable dashboard that could be deployed on a global scale. To build the dashboard, we first needed to learn more about the organization’s customers. To gain a better understanding, we identified and collected data from various sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau and the state’s “Report Card.”
Then it was time to mobilize the data. To do so, the North Highland team took a holistic approach to evaluating the best hosting and cloud platforms to meet the nonprofit’s needs—including Qlik Sense, Power BI, and Tableau. After careful consideration, we selected Tableau to bring the dashboard to fruition.
Next, North Highland experts analyzed the data sources to identify the most useful information and factors for our client. After determining the necessary features, we created a scorecard to rank zip codes within the target counties on a numeric scale. This scale allowed our client to determine which zip codes would benefit most from its resources, so that it could better prioritize its efforts.
From there, we designed a detailed, interactive, and user-friendly data dashboard that gives our client easy access to a wealth of insights, including county data, zip code data and comparison information, school statistics, and an interactive map of targeted counties which acts as a customer acquisition guide. The dashboard also allows users to:
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Access high-level information using both the map and a zip code information table.
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Filter zip codes on the zip code comparison page to view important school information such as ACT Scores, disciplinary breakdowns, and school names.
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View demographic and census information, such as income, family dynamics, commute time, the percentage of families considered impoverished, and families who utilize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
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Improve and expand customer reach by performing ad-hoc analysis of all the data and insights acquired by North Highland.
Value Delivered
Our partnership has enabled the nonprofit to achieve its goal of discovering and acquiring new customers to make an even more measurable impact on its community.
"[The dashboard] is going to be invaluable to us. It's going to be another tool we get to utilize as we’re on this mission and pathway…of doubling the number of youth we serve…and delivering hopeful outcomes so one hundred percent of them are ready for their great future. [This project] was about how we take an even more databased approach to looking at all the factors and variables we should be looking at as we look to expand and reach more youth…It exceeded my expectations." – CEO, Non-Profit Organization
Our client now has a customizable dashboard and a roadmap for executing its five-year strategic plan. The dashboard—which allows our client to tap into robust public and private data in an easy-to-read, up-to-date tool—gave it immediate access to a previously unexplored market of underserved youth. This tool has become the organization’s global standard for its premium brand and volume brand.
North Highland has been an essential extension of the nonprofit’s customer data and analytics expansion program, providing expert solutions that allow it to execute on its strategic initiatives.
