DEEP DIVE ON DATA COLLECTION- 3 sessions March 10, 17 & 24

We are told over and over about the importance of using data to make informed decisions, but it isn’t often talked about how to actively go about collecting different data points.

In this deep dive,  you will learn different tactics and best practices beyond the data you are passively collecting from your website or social media, to actively finding and collecting data. You will learn more about who you are serving and understand if those you serve are satisfied with services or what impact services have for them. Results from your findings can also be used to report to your funders or other stakeholders.

In this course you will learn about:

• Surveys: How to design surveys with different formats and their purposes, what options are available for low-cost survey tools, tactics to increase survey response, and important statistical concepts
• Interviews and Focus groups
• Privacy and Ethics: Privacy: commit to principles like getting permission and allowing individuals to control their own data along with basic guidelines to determine whether/how to share data, and some IT practices and tools like information protection, security awareness programs, and encryption that should be in place if they are collecting sensitive data.

About Our Instructor

Dr. Jessica Berrett
Assistant Professor, University of Colorado

Dr. Jessica Berrett is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Administration at North Carolina State University’s School of Public and International Affairs. She also holds an MBA with a focus on nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship from Syracuse University and a BA in Integrative Physiology from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her area of specialization is nonprofit management, with a research focus on nonprofit financial and performance management. Dr. Berrett’s research has been published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, VOLUNTAS, and the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs. Her strong commitment to the social sector is reflected in eighteen years of experience in nonprofit fundraising, management, and consulting. She is also the CEO of Three Stones Consulting, a strategy firm for the social sector that she founded in 2010. Jessica resides in Woodland Park, CO, with her husband, border collie Ally, and a dozen neighborhood deer. When not teaching or conducting research, she is outdoors exploring the mountains.

This course is 3 sessions: March 10, 17 and 24