For-profit companies aren’t the only organizations taking advantage of data visualization. United Way of the Bay Area, the poverty-combating non-profit, has its sights set on becoming innovative and data-driven to better provide services. United Way’s India Swearingen, Director of Evaluation and Insight, stopped by theCUBE at Tableau Software, Inc.’s annual customer conference to discuss how her organization uses Tableau to work towards its goal of cutting poverty in the Bay Area in half by 2020.

How United Way uses Big Data

United Way has a variety of data sources in its organization, including:

• Financial data, which it uses to understand where funding comes from and how people give.
• Engagement data, which offers information about who donates, how they donate, and how people re-engage with United Way.
• Program data, which tracks United Way’s programs, including their Spark Points financial education program and 2-1-1 information services hotline.

Collecting data from these core sources, Swearingen said, provides United Way with key insights into how they can combat poverty in specific areas and what tactics they should use to support their efforts. Program data in particular gives insight into when people turn to United Way and what they need, enabling the nonprofit to figure out the best ways to provide relief to those in need.

For example, by collecting call information from the 2-1-1 hotline, including caller location and requests, Swearingen said United Way is able to better target its services. “These people call from here for housing needs… tax services,” Swearingen explained. By understanding those trends, United Way can better provide help of the right kind, to people in the right place.

Using Tableau to present data

United Way also recently conducted an opinion poll from which it derived “valuable data,” said Swearingen. When presenting the results of their data analysis, Swearingen said she was able to “go through interactive tabs,” sharing data and communicating metrics to tell a story. She was able to “walk people through insights” in a way that truly engaged them.

What’s nice about Tableau, Swearingen observed, is that it allows her to bring stakeholders into the results, putting them in context. “I want you to be able to see what I see,” she said. Tableau helps the Director of Evaluation do more than share the results of data analysis, it makes it easy for her to communicate the story the data tells about United Way services and identify what can be done to make them better.

Read more after the video.

Tableau conference highlights

Besides her introduction to Neil Degrasse Tyson, Swearingen shared that she was most excited about the Tableau conference because it offered her the chance to take her skills “to the next level” and learn from other practitioners. She encountered other organizations leveraging Tableau in a whole host of ways that United Way has not yet tried. Her bumper sticker for the conference was “Data Geek’s Dream,” a sentiment with which Furrier and Kelly both agreed.

Swearingen’s advice to groups considering Tableau was to “Register, start playing with it.” She shared that no one gave her any Tableau training because “the tool was just super intuitive.” Now, Swearingen teaches others how to use Tableau through the Tableau data users group, which, she said, is substantial.

Image courtesy Tableau Software, Inc.