North Highland helped anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card transform passionate work into measurable impact by creating a comprehensive tracking dashboard that captures program outcomes across all UK regions. The solution streamlined data collection through Microsoft tools, saving staff eight hours monthly while strengthening fundraising efforts with concrete outcome data. SRtRC now independently tracks participant journeys and uses data-driven insights to improve educational approaches and demonstrate results to donors.
The Challenge: Passion without Proof
Passion drives meaningful social work, but it’s not an easy thing to quantify. Anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card (SRtRC) lived this firsthand. They knew their work was making a difference, but they struggled to prove it with data.
SRtRC’s mission is to “educate young people and adults on the causes and consequences of racism” via trainings, workshops, and other resources. Their work is invaluable for building safe, diverse communities.
Last year, North Highland partnered with SRtRC to expand the organization’s capacity by streamlining the lead-to-impact journey and standardizing corporate offerings.
This year’s partnership took on a new focus: using data to showcase the enhanced scale and scope of this group’s impact across UK communities.
“Our team had unwavering confidence that our educational initiatives were transforming perspectives and transforming lives," shares Paul Kearns, Director of Operations at SRtRC. “However, the significant challenge that we faced was to quantify and showcase these outcomes internally, or to financial supporters and collaborators. North Highland supported us to overcome these barriers."
The Approach: Discovery First
The North Highland team returned to SRtRC with an advantage: trust and momentum from the previous year's work. But they still started with listening; sitting down with educators, administrators, and program managers across all five offices to understand their day-to-day reality.
The goal was finding ways to track impact that made sense to SRtRC. This made it possible for impact measurement to become a natural part of their workflow rather than an added burden. Enter: The impact dashboard, a comprehensive tracking system that captures initiative outcomes and organizes them into an accessible, detailed overview.
"What distinguished North Highland was their commitment to understanding our reality before suggesting any solutions," notes Paul Kearns. "They didn't arrive with ready-made templates—they arrived ready to listen."
This discovery-first approach also helped uncover and prioritize what SRtRC needed from their new impact dashboard:
- Tracking consistent metrics across all programs and regions
- Minimizing down on extra desk work for already stretched staff
- Connecting quantitative data with qualitative stories
- Generating actionable insights to improve results
- Ensuring SRtRC staff could run the system independently
The Results: Data-Driven Impact for Anti-Racism Charity
For years, SRtRC couldn't show the full scope of their impact. Now they have a tool that can follow program participants throughout their entire journey, from initial engagement, giving a full view they never had before.
- Digital Efficiency Boost: Using Microsoft tools, North Highland helped streamline their data system. Our fix pulls information from multiple sources, consolidates information, automates follow-ups, and ultimately enhances data quality and consistency. This improvement alone saves at least eight hours per month that staff can now spend on the work most closely tied to the SRtRC mission.
- Stories That Drive Action: A central repository now stores all participant stories and feedback, giving teams quick access to real examples when writing grant proposals or reports.
- Building Skills, Not Just Systems: North Highland trained the SRtRC team on how to use these tools independently. Through hands-on sessions, staff strengthened both technical skills and big-picture thinking. These capabilities will allow them to adapt and grow their system as needs change, even after our partnership has ended.
The change detailed above went deeper than new technology. SRtRC now uses hard data to enhance everything they do.
"For the first time, we can see patterns across different programs, regions and countries," shares Dean Pymble, Campaign Manager for Wales and the West. "We're identifying what approaches work best with different age groups and adapting our educational content accordingly to achieve the aims and objectives we’ve created."
The impact dashboard has become a powerful tool for fundraising, with the charity able to demonstrate concrete outcomes to potential donors. Meanwhile, the time saved on administrative tasks has been redirected to what matters most: delivering anti-racism education.
Key Lesson: Data Drives Non-Profit Mission Success
Show Racism the Red Card's transformation shows how smart technology use and the right training can help charitable organizations track their impact. Their story provides a path for other groups to follow when they want to show their value, build trust with funders, and keep getting better through data-backed choices.
The CEO of Show Racism the Red Card, Ged Grebby, sums it up well: “The achievements of the North Highland team within just six weeks helped us to significantly improve what took us years to develop on our own and puts us in the best place that we have been in our three-decade history.”
