Many associations want to become more data-informed but find themselves hesitating to take the plunge into analytics. It does make sense – non-profit workers have an edict to good stewards of the organization, and need to be careful in the choices they make. During a recent Analytics in Action webinar, Bill Conforti and Merritt Rohlfing of A2 discussed some salient issues that come up when associations consider new tech, and ways around them.

“Analytics”, as an idea, can be daunting. The thought of changing the way you do business altogether – not to mention having to introduce new tools – can be worrisome and spook people, even if they have good intentions. That said, the reality is that lack of knowledge of just how to “do analytics”, while commonly cited as a barrier, shouldn’t prevent progress down the data-informed road. It’s not that organizations don’t know what to do – they’re simply not doing what they know they should. The good news is that there are numerous free resources available for learning analytics, from Microsoft and Google certifications to university courses offered by places like Harvard or Yale. You can even go on YouTube, channels like Guy in a Cube being a popular one. The barrier to entry has never been lower, it’s just about taking a glance and seeing what is possible. Taking that first step is the toughest, but even that can help. It’s not even about becoming an expert, just being able to speak the language a bit can help open doors to analytics. Introducing just concepts can pique the interest of colleagues and leaders.

The “we’ll do it later” mentality is a common trap. While timing concerns are legitimate, indefinite postponement means missing out on valuable insights. As Bill notes, “Just be careful with the things that are quite open-ended. If you do have a legitimate reason to push something off and it’s finite and known, like ‘I’m going to absolutely revisit this at the beginning of next fiscal year’ – then all those things are legitimate.” But sometimes, it’s more an excuse. Building a precise plan is vital, building toward a goal is a must.

The key is to build internal momentum by finding allies within your organization. As Merritt suggests, “Don’t just do it by yourself. Find some other people you work with and kind of build a small team within your organization.” This building of a coalition or united front makes it much harder for the higher-ups to say no to at least researching new tools that could help their team. Between the coalition and agreeing on at least the beginning of a timeline (“We will look at this on January 10th, I know it”) makes the “someday” disappear, and turn into “in a few weeks”.

Limited budget and resources emerged as one of the top concerns. The solution? Start small and build incrementally. “Think smaller,” advises Bill. “You might really want that cluster analysis of all your customers… but instead you need to do something a little bit smaller. You can absolutely get started with a couple of key activities and an Excel template.”

Consider analytics as an investment that can benefit multiple stakeholders. As Bill explains, “If you implement that analytics platform, that central repository, it extends and augments the source systems that are connected to it… rather than incrementally changing your marketing system or your LMS or even your AMS.”

While some struggle to see the concrete value of analytics, calculating potential ROI isn’t as complicated as it seems. “You look at different business areas or strategic goals and think about what it is now, like our retention rate, and come up with a reasonable future state that you feel like you could achieve,” explains Bill.

“When you leverage data, it shows that it’s proven something and then shows the value of other projects as well,” adds Merritt. “You can show that this marketing outreach had this level of impact on membership growth or event attendance.” Data helps associations tie seemingly separate aspects of the organization together, and paint a broader picture of where it stands. Plus, it opens up a window into the future of what could be.

Many organizations feel paralyzed by messy or incomplete data. However, perfect data is neither realistic nor necessary. “Perfect data is dead data,” as Merritt puts it. “If you have perfect data, that means you’ve done a great job in cleaning everything up and there’s nothing new coming in. That means you aren’t growing, and the end is nigh!” A bit dramatic, but very true.

The key is to start with what you have. As Bill emphasizes, “You’re making decisions already with imperfect data” in areas like digital transformation initiatives and event planning. “We don’t need all the data in order to make decisions… and to see patterns, spots, anomalies and things like that.”

The path to becoming a data-informed organization has its challenges, but probably challenges that are familiar to most association professionals trying to make new decisions at their organizations. Having new tools and techniques to address these obstacles head-on and taking incremental steps forward can allow them to start discovering valuable insights from their data and making more informed decisions for their members’ benefit.