Building a data collection plan we don't dread

Description: Data collection inside nonprofits has become a dreaded chore.

In this episode, Hillary explores how nonprofit leaders can shift data collection from a burdensome, compliance-driven exercise into a lean, human-centered practice rooted in curiosity. Drawing on her background as both a research-trained academic and a practitioner, Hillary breaks down how to design data systems that answer the questions you actually care about—rather than metrics that simply communicate how busy you’ve been.

The episode offers a practical framework for building a data collection plan you don’t dread, including how to distinguish outputs from outcomes, choose the right tools for individual, group, and societal change, and keep systems simple enough that overburdened teams can sustain them.

Featuring Vanessa Torres, Director of Programs at Freedom a la Cart in Columbus, Ohio, this episode grounds the framework in real-world practice. Vanessa shares how her team streamlined data collection for nearly 150 women each month—creating a system that is rigorous, survivor-centered, and genuinely useful to staff and participants alike.

Mentioned: Maitreyi, A., Conner, A. L., Tumolillo, M. A., Lyons-Padilla, S., Acs, G., Patel, N. G., Markus, H. R., & Eberhardt, J. L. (n.d.). Measuring mobility from poverty toolkit. SPARQtools. https://sparqtools.org/measuringmobility/

Guest: Vanessa Torres is the Director of Programs at Freedom a la Cart in Columbus, Ohio. Freedom a la cart empowers survivors of sex trafficking and exploitation to build lives of freedom and self sufficiency–this is the same organization that helped Vanessa rebuild her own life nearly 15 years ago. She oversees programs that support survivors of human trafficking through workforce development, housing, mentorship, and long-term healing. 

Vanessa’s expertise is shaped by more than a decade of professional experience in the justice system and in survivor-centered service delivery. Prior to joining Freedom a la Cart’s leadership team, she worked for the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, where she rose through multiple promotions in the Domestic Violence & Stalking Unit and later became the Chief Assistant to the Chief Prosecutor.

In 2018, she stepped into a history-making role as bailiff for Franklin County’s CATCH Court, the specialized docket for survivors of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Serving alongside the judge who once presided over her own case, Vanessa played a central role in implementing trauma-informed practices and supporting hundreds of participants on their recovery journeys.

A gifted speaker and educator, Vanessa has presented at major national conferences including End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI), the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), and the International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference. In 2023, she addressed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., bringing survivor-informed insight to national policy and business leaders.

Transcript

My name is Hillary Frances, and one of the things that I'm thinking about is why data collection feels so tedious, why it's a dreaded chore. And I think one of the reasons we dread data is that it's about compliance. Someone else is asking or requiring us to do this. We all have examples of ridiculous metrics a funder has asked us to report on. So then we build out expensive databases, higher consultants, hire external evaluators, cajole our participants into filling out stacks of surveys, and then. We chalk it up to the cost of doing business. You're listening to tailwinds ideas, fueling nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs. 

Tailwinds is a project that brings momentum to the leaders tackling the world's most impossible problems. Today's episode, how we build a data collection plan that we don't dread. I'm going to argue working with data would be less dreaded if it was used to answer your own curiosities. And to be clear, today we're talking about program data, specifically, not fundraising data. Today's episode has two parts. Part one, I share the formula for building a lean data collection system. I'm going to give you my insight as an academic who has studied and taught research methods and as a practitioner who has had to make program evaluation work under pressure. Part two, you hear from a program director of a social enterprise in Columbus, Ohio, who has streamlined her data collection system for the nearly 150 women they serve each month. 

So part one, lean data collection. Lately I've been working with organizations who have a lot of data to collect for their grant makers. In many cases, no surprise, the most difficult data is collected for government grants. We're talking about something like the number of youth you served in a specific zip code, who had a particular type of childhood trauma. If this is you, you've had to build immensely complicated systems for tracking who is due for what survey, which data is missing, who's going to interview, who to collect, missing pieces, and then the worst is gathering data on people who have exited your program. You have no time or bandwidth for curiosity at this point. You just want to get the job done. I've also worked with several organizations who have very limited data collection going on at all. You're the startups that have yet to build routines for this. You're the organizations that have put your resources into building great relationships with your program participants and don't wanna make them feel like they're being studied. In both cases, if you're a data collection machine or if you haven't done much of it at all, you can set up a very lean and human centered system to answer questions you are curious about. 

Here are the steps to building a data collection plan you won't dread one, decide what your questions are. What do you want to know about the impact of your work? Two, create a very simplified system, then make it simpler. Three, ensure the whole team understands what we're doing and why we four, if you serve people, ensure the data you collect from those people makes sense to them and is shared with them. And five, your process complies with donor requests. Last. If there's something your donors have asked you for that you haven't already planned to do in steps one through four, add them in step five. So I'm going to go through each of these more in depth. 

First, we're deciding what our questions are. That's step one. I'm gonna give you an example from Flying Whale. If I was worried about compliance with grant funders for, let's say, my monthly workshops, I might set myself up to answer these questions. What was the percentage of attendees who were satisfied with the workshops? What is the percentage of attendees who would recommend flying Whale to others? What are the demographics of attendees, geography, industry, job titles? Now, if I'm thinking about what I'm actually curious about, it would be different. It would be these things. Are attendees equipped to solve impossible problems in their sector? Are they becoming bolder leaders? In other words, I'm interested in the outcomes of my work. Well, most funders say they're interested in outcomes, but then they ask you loads of questions about outputs. Real quick, my definition of those two things, outputs, communicate how busy you've been, outcomes, communicate how effective you've been. So step one in your data collection plan is to set yourselves up to get the answer to a question you're interested in. Note, I have a separate episode on measuring the immeasurable, which will help you think of some more philosophical things you'd like to have answers to, but we're afraid you wouldn't be able to measure. So check that out. 

Okay. Step two in our data collection plan after we've thought of our questions, is the system you'll use to collect the data. When I think about a system, it's a few things. It's a tool, like a survey or an interview. It's a schedule. How often will we collect data? It's a person in charge of doing it, and it's a place to put the data. The tool part, the tool itself changes depending on if your question is about individual level change, small group level change or societal change. We have different tools for each. 

Let me share a bit about how to choose the right tool. First for individual level change, let's say your question is what percent of our participants increased in a measure of socioeconomic stability. Here you're measuring individual growth, so you need to know their level of socioeconomic stability at at least two points in time, likely before you started working with them and after. And you need a tool. Anytime you're measuring change at the individual level, a survey, a conversation with the person, or an observation of that individual, and a matrix that allows you to identify where they are. Quick tip on where to find great survey tools, the internet. Use the search term validated framework for measuring dot, dot. Then fill in the blank on what you're trying to measure. For example, the US Center on Mobility from Poverty, Stanford and the Urban Institute published my go-to set of surveys for measuring mobility from poverty that many of our partners use today. So in our sample question where we're trying to measure the percent of our participants who increased socioeconomic stability, I would go to the website that this team created, and I would find a great survey tool for socioeconomic stability You can also search the internet for a validated framework on measuring anything you're trying to measure. For measuring refugee integration or validated framework for measuring the human animal bond. That's how you'll find a survey tool that social scientists created, and then you can revise and simplify it. So that's all related to individual level change. 

What if you're interested in measuring the change you're creating at a small group level, like a specific community or population of people? A question you might be trying to answer. Here's an example. How well are we increasing health equity for BIPOC people in Denver? Your tool here will be a focus group. An interview of people familiar with that group or a survey that goes out to a sample of the group. I worked with a group of oral health Promotoras in Colorado who had a similar research question. They were working to help vulnerable communities navigate the oral healthcare system by teaching classes, helping with phone calls, driving people to appointments, translating documents, simply being a guide through a convoluted system. To become a promotora, you have to be a trusted representative of the community you're serving. So you can imagine when we were wondering how to measure the change in health equity for BIPOC people in our community, we decided we would ask the Promotoras what they are observing at different intervals of time. Individuals who are deeply familiar with the experience of the group can fill out a survey or answer questions in a focus group. Their answers can tell you how health equity is changing in a community. So that small group level change. Next, the tools for measuring societal change, let's say your question is, how effectively are we shifting negative perceptions about incarcerated people in our country? Three tools for this. One. A focus group, content analysis or polling. I already talked a bit about a focus group, and you know what polling is. Polling would be the most expensive, not simple option. 

So let me tell you about content analysis. This is something an intern could do for you on an annual basis. You decide on a medium that frequently contains information about people you're serving. So in our example, people who've been incarcerated. Maybe it's newspaper articles or even crime shows. You would analyze a set of articles or crime shows that aired at specific intervals of time for positive, neutral, or negative conveyances of people who were incarcerated. Then. You would count how many times a positive, neutral, or negative theme was conveyed in each piece. The idea here is that this medium is representative of what their audience believes, so then you'd be able to say something like, between 2020 and 2025, media representation of formerly incarcerated individuals conveyed 25% more positive perceptions. That's content analysis. So we're still talking here about the data collection system, and all of that was about the tools. 

Next, you have the schedule, the people in charge and the place to put the data. This is the part that needs to be very simple. The schedule is often where the wheels fall off the bus. You need at least two points in time to compare results. However, when it comes to working with people, I've found that two points in time is not enough because someone can have a bad day or a good day and it throws off the results. I'd recommend at least four points in time if you're doing a survey, observation, or focus group. Now, I hesitate to say this out loud, but one very helpful shortcut I've discovered is something called a retrospective baseline survey. This is where you ask the question quote compared to before, how do you feel now compared to before you met the Promotoras? How do you feel about your ability to navigate the healthcare system? Retrospective baseline. You only need to do these once, not a pre and a post. 

So we've talked about the tools, the schedule, now the people in charge, who will be responsible? Who will be responsible for collecting data, frontline staff, volunteers, supervisors. Many of you are nervous about giving anyone a single additional task. So this part is hard. The key here is ensuring that the people collecting the data are also interested in the answer to the question. More on this in a minute. 

Lastly, the place to put the data in my experience, it's best to start with a basic spreadsheet. Do not invest in a database for program data until you understand exactly how you wish to calculate outcomes. When you build a database, you have to know exactly what the dropdown menu items will be, what the fields will be, what fields contribute to what reports. I learned the hard way when I was trying to work with a consultant to build a Salesforce database to track program outcomes at the startup I worked for. I learned that we first needed to practice doing things manually in a spreadsheet before we did it in the database. I knew this was true when week after week we were asking the Salesforce guy to change something because we changed our mind about something. I work with organizations collecting data on hundreds of individuals who are doing just fine in their spreadsheet. So there you have it. We worked through how to create a simplified data collection system. That was the second step 

Step three is to ensure the whole team understands why we're doing what we're doing. If you have a small team, you can bring them into the very beginning stage where you decide what your outcome goals are, the questions you wanna answer. You can include them in your discussions about the tools and the frequency and the spreadsheet. If you have a larger team, you can bring them in by showing them the plan and then asking a bigger question like, what part of your job do you think will impact our results on this? What's your hypothesis about how we will move the needle on this? When do you think we might stall out? Does anyone wanna place bets on this? Another key here is ensuring you have a way of sharing the results with your team on a regular basis. You can have a fun data analysis meeting where everyone is on pins and needles to hear the results from the last round of surveys. You are gonna learn about this from our guest, how she does this in just a couple of minutes. 

Step four, if you serve people, ensure the data you collect from those people makes sense to them and is shared with them. Rather than handing out a survey in a packet of required intake paperwork and saying, thank you for doing this, our funders require it. You could introduce it as a key way they are tracking their growth in your program, I've seen organizations ask people to do something called a checkout reflection. At the end of their time in the building, each day or each week, they fill out their survey and record a quick video on their phone describing how they feel at the end of the day. I've also seen staff use their case management or counseling time to go over the matrix they have on their computer out loud with the participant. They will say something like, as you know, we're working on your self-sufficiency this week. I really observed your ability to advocate for yourself when you raised your hand in the all staff meeting. For that reason, I'm marking you as mostly there, four out of five on self-advocacy. It looks like you're still on a three on contingency planning because this week we had that problem with your car. This kind of conversation is how you ensure that data collection is valuable to the people you're serving, not just the organization. 

Last step in your data collection plan include your donor requests last. This is the step where you check to make sure all the metrics your grants require of you are already accounted for. If not, you add them to your process. You either include additional questions on your intake form or your follow-up forms, and I've seen funders decrease their reporting requirements when they see that the organization has their own rigorous process. So I encourage everyone to create a simple one page quarterly impact report that shares what you're learning with your donors proactively. 

Now I'm going to play parts of my conversation with Vanessa Torres. Vanessa Torres is the Director of Programs at Freedom a la Cart in Columbus, Ohio. Freedom a la Cart empowers survivors of trafficking and exploitation to build lives of freedom and self-sufficiency. This is the same organization that helped Vanessa rebuild her own life nearly 15 years ago. She oversees programs that support survivors of human trafficking through workforce development, housing, mentorship, and long-term healing. I wanted you to hear from Vanessa, especially on the topic of data, because she will tell it like it is. She doesn't have time or patience for a process that's extra. She's gonna make it user friendly and doable. I had the privilege of working with her and her team about a year and a half ago on their program evaluation plan, and Vanessa was my favorite contributor to those meetings. She said things like, can we move this meeting to not be right after lunch? And I think we can simplify this. 

Vanessa's expertise is shaped by more than a decade of professional experience in the justice system and in survivor centered service delivery. Prior to joining Freedom, a LA Cart's leadership team, she worked for the Columbus City Attorney's office where she rose through multiple promotions in the domestic violence and stalking unit, and later became the chief assistant to the chief prosecutor. 

One of the things that sounds kind of strange in our conversation is that I ask her questions about her data collection plan, even though I know the plan really well, we created it together. But I'm asking the questions as if I don't know the answers, because I want her to feel confident in any changes she's made since then. It's like she can explain it to me fresh for the first time. I was taking a gamble with this conversation. I did not confer with Vanessa ahead of time to determine if her plan was still as robust now as it was when we built it. So she could have answered my questions by saying things like, we never really got that off the ground, or We're still thinking about how to make that work. But she took what we did and ran with it. So know that secretly in my heart, I'm very proud of Vanessa and the team at Freedom a la Cart.

Okay, Vanessa, if we were doing this interview in a location that would represent your work, what room would we be in or what would be going on in the background?

I just tell you, this is such a fun question. We have a. Building now downtown Columbus. And we have a cafe, which is open to the public, but above the cafe is our survivor loft. And that loft we have open seating where all of the employees work. And this can be good and bad. So it's good because we're connecting, we're open, we're transparent, we're available. But it's also hard because we're. all the time. And sometimes we just need quiet spaces. So we do have some chaos that we, we kind of gotta get used to. Uh, we say that our mission is in the interruptions, so we needed to create a space where we can be interrupted. And people don't feel in, like they're an inconvenience, as an interruption. So yes, it's, it's chaos but we're creative with it. Our population of human trafficking, people who have been through a lot. So we have to be pivoters, we have to be able to be flexible, and so our team knows that and we just do the best that we can to be there for the people we serve. But I get to supervise people and. I super, some of them have lived experience, so I get to help create the space that they can be they can get what they need while they are working with our population. Does that make sense?

That makes sense. Okay, so a year and a half ago we set up a logic model to show the correlation between program activities and the impact you hope those activities achieve. This logic model started with a focus population on the left, the people you serve. Then it went over to a list of activities. You plan to do, some outputs, you'll measure some outcomes you'll measure, and the overall impact of everything combined. So let's share with people some of the decisions we made with this logic model. Can you share first your focus population?

Yes. so we do serve survivors of human trafficking. all. Adults and primarily female. We also serve non-binary and transgender. So any person that walks through our doors are going to have some significant barriers to work through. And that's who we welcome. People who have been justice involved, people who have challenges with mental health. Or substance use challenges all the things like we welcome people who have the barriers.

Okay, perfect. And the impact statement. Do you have that handy?

I do.

Okay.

So our impact statement is survivors of human trafficking will break the cycle of exploitation, strengthening families, and building resilient communities nationwide for generations to come. Hmm.

Love it. That's great. And then we decided to organize all your activities, outputs, and outcomes. The the three middle columns into five categories, work, money, housing, relationships, and health. So there's activities you do in the work category, outputs you measure related to work. An outcome related to work. Same for money, same for housing. That's how we chose to organize it. Do you mind sharing a couple of the outcome goals? A few examples of your favorites?

Yes, and I gotta be honest, like working through the idea of the difference between outcome and outputs, all that was. New information to me and I, I still have to write it down and look at it just to make sure that I'm using it correctly. But one, one thing that we did is we got away from looking at programs and what outcomes we want for each program, and got to those five areas of focus, which go across all of our programming, which makes it so much more, like, more simple. That means we only have one. type of data collecting that we need to do. Basically we do surveys and we only have the one that we need to push out to all people, and that just made it so much better. Then it's all in one spot, which I think we'll talk about in a little bit. Some of my favorites, I really love watching someone's earning power increase and. We like. Those are some, some of the language i I got from our time together. And just increased earning power is so important, especially from, for people who have been exploited often through financial means. And so to, to see their, earning power increase is me watching the vulnerabilities decrease. And that was just meaningful. I got a, I had a message this morning. About someone who was really struggling and ended up going back into commercial sex and and that was devastating. She's not, she hasn't made it to our program yet. And so I'm like really hoping to, looking forward to her being connected to our program and watching her earning power to increase so those vulnerabilities will decrease.


I love that you have a specific person you're excited to match with this goal.

Come on. Yes.

We decided that we were gonna define earning power. A specific way because earning power is something that each organization has to define what that means. So earning power sounds sort of hypothetical, Philosophical, subjective, and Vanessa and her team decided that earning power is achieved when somebody can check off. Items from the following list, either, they attended or completed school of any sort, like A GED or post-secondary something. They got a job, they earned a certification, they had an internship, they earned a promotion, or they earned a raise. And that's what they mean by earning power. Is that still how you define earning power?

Yeah. And one of those things are gonna help people to, to move forward on, financial security. And that's what we're looking for is for people to be more secure and like self-sufficient and more secure and, I don't know if you know this, but people who have. Uh, lived through exploitation, often have a complex relationship with money. So even just like enhancing their financial literacy is a game changer. Often people have never heard of an emergency fund, no idea where their money is going. And we will spend every dime they have out of guilt on another person. So just kind of bringing them in on like there's some realizations around that are always that we get to help increase their earning power so that they can be self-sufficient long term.

I'm so glad that one's resonating still. I'll share my favorite on the list so that folks know as we talk about data collection, we're measuring some things that are hard to measure, and the one that I love is how you decided to measure health improvement in health. You said that 60% of participants will be able to engage in work and family activities without being hindered by physical and mental health. I just think that's a really cool angle on what health means to you. So that's the framework of what these goals are that we're measuring. And now we're gonna talk about Vanessa's data collection routines that hopefully she does not dread. Uh, the theme of this episode is data collection that we don't dread.

Right?

So before you tell us about current data collection, can you paint a picture of the day-to-day routines of your work so we know how hard or easy it is for you to collect data?

Yeah. Uh, so as we were talking about earlier, a day-to-day can be unpredictable. We, we invite the interruptions. Uh, so really helping my team to put in place some real intentional times to data collect is really important when someone's in front of us and they're, they're trying to submit their information for A-C-D-C-A, it is overwhelming. It is a lot of work. So to do a survey during that time is kind of. So really trying to talk with my team more intentionally about them. Giving those surveys out on a rolling basis. That's what we do is on a rolling basis. We do a couple pushes a year, but we're really trying to be a little bit more intentional. And so as we're meeting with people and they're growing in a certain field and we know that they are, then we will ask them to do a survey

Does everyone have a case manager or a person that they meet with regularly that can give them the survey?

Yes, every one of my team is capable of giving the survey and we do Google surveys. So all the information is in, we have one link. All the information is in one spot and it populates its own spreadsheet. And it also has those, uh, visual charts, which I really like. Once the data's collected, we have a team that formulates the, impact numbers. And then I'll share that with the team and let them see like what they've, what they've helped to do. That's part of how I get them to do it.

So some employment, social enterprises, some nonprofits struggle with the timing of giving out a survey because there's not a routine time In your case though, how do your staff keep track of who they've. Done the survey for and who they still need to do it for.

So that is still in the works and it's that that part is still kind of hard to figure out. Yeah. So what, what we do to try to collect as an. as possible. One thing we've done is we incentivize the people to do surveys, with like a $10 gift card. Simple enough, and everybody wants a $10 gift card. We've simplified the process, but like as it, so like when people are doing the surveys, it doesn't take 15 minutes, it just takes about five, seven minutes. So basically what I do is I talk about it all the time my team. I pulled the, the numbers every week and I'll say this week we had. surveys go out this week. This week we've had 10 surveys go out or whatever it is. And just share with them just to keep it on their radar because they're in direct service. Like surveys are not really front of their mind, but that's where I think it's really important to show them the impact numbers so they can see like, why the data is important. We wouldn't know these numbers if you didn't push out these surveys. So that helps them to kinda act, it helps them to like able to do it, to want to do it. But also I have incentivized my team as well. Once. Really. I was like, whoever gets the most surveys in this month, you get a gift card. Like trying

I love that. So the, so the staff are actually prompting the women to do their survey right then when they're sitting together or to go home and do it?

Do it right then. won't happen if you wait too long.

Yep. And so they hand them an iPad or something, or they do it on their phone.

On their phone. And they just punch in the, in the numbers. Most people have a smartphone, not everybody. We also have a few paper copies laying around in case someone doesn't have access to the piece.

And is the hope that each participant does it once a year or more than that?

Because we are, uh, we have a lifelong continuum of care program we don't have, we don't expect people to do it all the time. It just depends on what season that they are in with us, when they first get with us, often they need a lot of things, want a lot of things. So we're hands on working on helping someone get their, like, improve their education, helping them get jobs, helping them find housing. Those are like a solid season of surveys. So basically if someone is with us month. They may have done quite a few things in that month, so we'll do a survey with them. they've been with us for 15 years, they don't need anything. They're just showing up to a couple events. Then we'll, they'll do an annual survey. Whave about three hundred and fifty five, three hundred sixty people in our program right now and all in different walks of life in different parts of their journey.

This is so good. Okay, Walk us through the way a survey score gets entered into a spreadsheet or a CRM and who does that and how often. So you have a Google form populates a spreadsheet, and then that spreadsheet has. A formula that creates charts. It sounds like

charts

graphs.

It gives us all of the information that we are looking for. So as long as our questions are right, the information that we need pretty easily. now here's the bridge that we're working on. the bridge from the Google spreadsheet, the Google surveys into our actual client. system and we're close to having that all the way done. There's just some questions that aren't lining up. Probably 'cause we've changed it a good bit. That's what we're working on now.

What are some ways you've made data collection easier for your staff? Overall, how have you made them dread data collection less?

Just continuing to talk about it and always having the mindset that they are doing the best that they can. So I'm not coming at them with a shaming tone or Why haven't you done this yet? Tone? Although I may be feeling that I try hard not to portray that because I do believe they are doing the best they can. So. Just really having that understanding and then just reminding and being kind and then showing impact numbers and every now and then, have a competition, trauma competent competition gift card. So just trying to, to make it simple not change it too much. There, there. Some of the challenge with like, it was one way and then it was another way, and then it was another way. And it was like, that is so, it's such a disservice to my team. So now I really work hard to really finalize things before, uh, telling them it's changing or it's different actually created videos as to how to do this so they could watch the video. So basically make it more than one way to be able to teach someone. People learn differently.

That's amazing. And is the video, like, how do you find the survey link and, and what's it for?

Yeah. And how to yes. Basically how to get to it, what it's for. Basically.

I love that. That's a brilliant idea. I don't know anyone who's done that. You are being really thorough. This is really impressive. You said that. You want your staff to be excited about seeing the results and you, and ideally, they would be eager to have their participants fill out the surveys so that they get answers to questions that they've been curious about. Do you have any routines yet or plans for routines where you meet to talk about the results from your surveys?

So what we do right now is we do the full impact statement at the end of the year or beginning of the year, depending on timeframes to really go over them and let everybody know what we've done for the year. We also do a key metrics where we are adding certain data and tracking it weekly just to follow it and make sure we're staying on track. And I share those numbers with the team. They get excited when they're like, okay, we're at, we're, we're over halfway to our goal and we're not even halfway through the year. Like they get excited about that information and. Really when, when they're in the weeds all day, every day, to even notice that there is an impact that's happening. It's kind of hard to tell sometimes. We've had tears, had people like in tears, like saying, oh my gosh, I had no idea we had that kind of an impact. Which is really cool. 'Cause they're doing hard work. It's meaningful, but sometimes it's hard to tell that there's an impact, you know?

What part of this project are you most proud of?

It was challenging to kind of face a logic model, to learn about a logic model to put work into the logic model. It was challenging to do that and it was scary to put the time aside to be able to do that, but the result of it was so worth it. Like we pulled numbers this year and it was just so easy to pull the numbers that we needed. There was no crazy like re-analyzing and all of like, how, how do we get here with these numbers? So we're doing something right and I'm grateful for that. Even though there were times in the middle of that, I thought, are we ever going to finish this? Is it actually going to be worth it? And now a year and a half later, I can say, oh, thank God. Thank God we did all that and it was worth it,

Mm-hmm. That's a huge compliment to yourselves that you pulled your end of your data without hassle

I know, have you ever felt like that's that's too simple. Like we have to be missing something like

Yep.

That's where we were at. Like, are we missing something? But, but no, like we put a

If it's hard, it must be right.

So do the women you serve know what their data looks like, how they're improving on a given topic? What ideas do you have about getting them in the loop on their results?

What ideas you have?

Okay. I have my thoughts are that first you have to explain what these outcome goals are and why you chose them. So what earning power means, what what each goal means. So you go through each of the goals on your logic model and say like, these are things we're interested in as a team, tracking our progress. Are we doing our job to support you? But. How would you feel about knowing your progress? Like the result of your stability score on May 1st versus on September 1st? Would you like to know? And, and pretty soon you'll get that, that will incentivize them to take the survey

True.

It also could be part of the conversation with their caseworker. Like, does this number make sense that we, that we went up in the last few months, even though you told me you were really stressed about housing, somehow your housing score went up. What do you think of that? Or like. Social capital, what that means is that you have access to people that are gonna help you get ahead. That score went down. Do you have any idea why, like, maybe 'cause you started hating people more. Like you, you're going through a growth phase where it's actually a growth phase that you hate people, you know, like that somehow that the, the, the reflection on their scores could be part of their.

I love it. I love it. I think it's a great idea and I'm going to make it happen because I think it's, and we all the time, literally the language I use is, can you fill out this survey? We're trying to make sure that we're doing a great job for you, but never go any further than that. I think people like to know what's going on in their lives, like to know, like, to be reminded that they are actually progressing and doing well, and then catch things when they're declining or, or going backwards before it's too far

So I guess I'm curious what you as a leader are learning from this data and what is on the horizon at freedom a la carte because of something you're learning.

So I think from, from the beginning, data in general was new to me. Like I know it existed, but I've never been in the data world. So personally, as a, as a professional, I've, I've learned a lot about data i'll tell you something I learned today. Is that my people have served 148 people on average every month. And to be honest, I had no idea that number. And as I'm even, these conversations are prompting me and like. Opening my mind to new ideas and, and thoughts, like I, I can't wait to go back and tell them that on average, it's 148 people that you serve, and we're a small team. So the burnout rate, the compassion, the calling off, or the pushback on adding another person too, their caseload. Makes so much sense in all things that I felt like it makes sense that this is hard for them. It makes sense that they probably don't have capacity for this, but like if you look at those average numbers, that's, that's, it's a high amount for a small team that we have. There's seven of us, and I'm not in direct service, so there's really six people in direct service. they got a lot going on

That is a brilliant answer. 'cause essentially you're using data about the people you serve to help you manage your staff. Yeah.

Yes. We did a time study this year. Did I tell you about a time study that we did? It, takes a lot of time to do a time study. So my team was not happy about this, but it was two weeks of writing down your every move and basically it was like, 'cause there's so much that doesn't go into our systems, just when someone walks into the loft, like that conversation that took 20 minutes may or may not make it to the system. people might like when someone's been interrupted, which is okay, but when someone's been interrupted, they leave their task, go to this other thing and then go back to the task. So maybe that's not even being thought of, but also the task switching is. Draining. And so like I wanted to make note of that is my, team able to say no to people? 'cause that's what I really wanted to know is are you saying yes to everything because you think you have to? And so I needed them to write everything down, including smoke breaks, including lunch. Like everything from the time that you're with us to the time you leave for two weeks. We were able to like see a few things that I'm like, we absolutely should not be, should not be moving an entire house with somebody. Like we need to resource out for that. None of us have the capacity to do that,

So did you make any big decisions after that time study? 

We decided on a role. We looked at a role that we were considering a resource manager, but instead we're gonna do an intake specialist. And I've really put some parameters around certain activities that were happening consistently and really trying to say the why to my team. Like, we shouldn't be moving people. That's my big example because. It is so exhausting, and another example would be spending five hours in court with someone. Like there are certain times that's appropriate, like if someone's going in, facing an abuser. Like, yes, they need someone with them, but if someone's going in as traffic related, understand it can be tough, but that's where we can have a little bit more discernment and have a another chance to, like a different pathway for them or, or have someone else support them. So just trying to balance some of those things

You have a very nuanced leadership identity. Like truly I see leaders who kind of live into the identity of being very, rigorous in everything, like everything we're gonna do to the fullest and hardest and most, and like I'm gonna be, I'm gonna make hard decisions and tell you not to help your people move and that you can't go to court for more. It's like either that or they're super relatable, but being both requires some serious maturity as a leader.

Yeah. You're amazing.

Back at you.

Thank you, Vanessa.

You're welcome. It's good to see you.

I've heard many leaders, including the non nerdy leaders, say, I can't wait to start. After we built a data collection plan using the tools and processes Vanessa just talked about and the steps I outlined in this episode. I think we're all just hungry for proof that we're doing something that's working. I also think we're looking for ways to add science to the work that was largely designed by our intuition. Even your overburdened staff will find themselves willing to put in the extra work when they can see that they're part of something out of the ordinary. Vanessa has given us proof of that. 

Tailwinds is a production of Flying Whale Strategies, a consulting firm that is equipping teams to solve impossible problems. I'm very grateful to Vanessa Torres for taking the time to reflect on her data collection plan, and I'm grateful to the team of powerhouse women standing behind her. I'm glad we took a gamble on this conversation, Vanessa. Everyone should always gamble on Vanessa impressing them. If you'd like to learn more about the work she's doing, please visit freedomalacart.com. If you'd like to learn more about Flying Whale Strategies, please visit our website at flyingwhalestrategies.com. Thanks for listening.