Partnering for Success: Hartford Promise Strengthens its Data Culture with CTData
In early 2023, Hartford Promise faced a big problem. While this nonprofit organization was funding larger numbers of Hartford public high school graduates with up to $20,000 in scholarships and coaching support to succeed in college, their old data system could not keep up with program growth or evaluate their overall impact. Staff collected lots of information about their scholars but lacked a plan to effectively use it to achieve their organizational goals. Even worse, their database platform was "sunsetting," a software industry euphemism for "going out of business."
Hartford Promise needed help formulating their data plan, both to growth with technology and to gauge their overall effectiveness. Melissa Paul, the Director of College Partnerships, began working with CTData, as part of a cohort of nonprofit organizations participating in Data Strategic Planning. "Before working with CTData, we were collecting a lot of data, but we didn't really know how to synthesize it to answer questions about the effectiveness of our work," she explained. But the combination of workshops and individualized coaching sessions taught Melissa and her colleagues how to design a data plan that worked for them. While working with CTData over 15 months, her team began to "identify the most important questions, where different information was stored, how to merge it all together, and tell a story about our impact."
Today, Hartford Promise has richer data on the scholars they have supported. To date, 1,110 scholars have received nearly $10 million in college scholarships after meeting the program's requirements for high school GPA, attendance, and residency. About 90 percent identify as students of color, 74 percent come from low-income families, and 70 percent are the first generation to attend college. Most importantly, 76 percent of Hartford Promise scholars graduate from college, which is higher than the national 47 percent graduation rate of low-income students who receive federal Pell grants, the closest comparison group currently available. Having this richer data gives Hartford Promise the opportunity to better communicate program results to their stakeholders.
Better data also helps the Hartford Promise team to target their one-on-one coaching and support to help their scholars to stay enrolled in college. Their new data platform helped staff to establish better routines for 30-minute phone or video check-in calls each semester to listen, encourage, and track progress. These calls give staff a broader understanding of barriers to persistence in college, such as financial insecurity, health issues, and academic needs. In addition to Hartford Promise’s "Reaching Forward" support during the college years, they are also using data to strengthen their "Reaching Back" program to guide high school students on pathways to success.
Another aspect of the Hartford Promise data plan was its transition to a new database platform, with CTData coaching. The team carefully reviewed their specific data needs and learned to ask software vendors the right questions before making a purchase. "Software vendors will try to sell you the moon," Melissa cautioned, "but CTData made the process so much smoother because we knew what we were looking for" regarding data table relationships and the types of reports needed. CTData's experience also helped Hartford Promise staff "avoid being pushed around by sales reps."
The key to success for Hartford Promise is not simply its new database, but rather its collective work to build up a "data culture" within its organization. "Our CTData coach Finn Darby-Hudgens met with every person on our team, listened to their data needs, and how they fit into the work they do," recalled Melissa. "Now we have a shared knowledge of data in our staff meetings, which was a huge shift from where we were a few years ago."
Not everyone who works in a nonprofit organization initially thinks of themself as a "data person," and CTData coaches gently work with staff to alter these perceptions. "At first, data made me feel anxious," recalled Talia Clarke, a coordinator at Hartford Promise. "But after implementing it, and having the support from CTData, it's transformed [our organization] and made my job a lot easier."
CTData offers cohort-based workshops and customized coaching sessions to help pull your organization together, focus on common problems, and guide you on integrating existing data and low-cost tools. The goal is to strengthen your organization’s data culture, as well as the broader data ecosystem of nonprofit organizations and public agencies across Connecticut.
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