1. Getting the Big Picture: Using Dashboards to track your data

2. NTC 2008, New Orleans 2 agenda Top Three Takeaways for Session: 1. Learn what a dashboard is 2. Understand what kind of data to track on a dashboard 3. Review best practices and how to develop a dashboard Session Outline: Intros of speakers (5 minutes) Orientation to Dashboards (25 minutes) Hands-on Exercise – Break into 2 or 3 small groups. Each group will be given a scenario around a nonprofit organization and be asked to design a dashboard – (30 minutes) Show & Tell – share ideas and discuss (30 minutes)

3. NTC 2008, New Orleans 3 what is a dashboard? visual tool graphics performance measures at-a-glance

4. NTC 2008, New Orleans 4 why should I care? why do you care? Effective tool for Board members & senior management Forces focus on what's important Efficient analysis

5. NTC 2008, New Orleans 5 what data should I track? relevant to the audience Board members and senior leadership Program leaders Advoacy Development Donor tells the story timely

6. NTC 2008, New Orleans 6 what is a dashboard? Board & Sr. leadership Organizational goals VP of Programs Overall program goalsProgram 1Program 2 VP of Development Fundraising goals Online FundraisingDirect mail

7. NTC 2008, New Orleans 7 let’s look at some examples… Unfortunately, I was not able to get permission to distribute the dashboard samples I showed in the session. However, you can find plenty of examples within the Resources listed on the last slide.

8. NTC 2008, New Orleans 8 best practices Don’t make the user scroll to see the whole picture If it’s too big to fit, maybe you need change the level of detail and create sub-Dashboards. Design to a single screen/page Don’t include measures without something to compare against e.g. goal, time, another measure Ensure adequate context Don’t make it so detailed you can’t see the big picture Don’t clutter with unnecessary information Limit to key indicators relevant for that level of dashboard, e.g. the organization’s overall health and performance at the top level. Use an appropriate level of detail Don’t distract the user with extraneous design elements Don’t go crazy with color Maximize your “data/ink ratio” Usability is key! Keep design simple “Data-ink ratio” is a concept defined by Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

9. NTC 2008, New Orleans 9 resources Chronicle of Philanthropy article about Kaboom www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i01/01mg0601.htm www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i01/01mg0601.htm Results Accountability Implementation Guide www.raguide.org www.raguide.org Benchmarking for Nonprofits: How to Measure, Manage, and Improve Performance Jason Saul, Fieldstone Alliance, 2004 Information Dashboard Design, The Effective Visual Communication of Data Steven Few, O'Reilly, 2006 The Nonprofit Dashboard, A Tool for Tracking Progress Lawrence M. Butler, BoardSource, 2007 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Edward Tufte, Graphics Press, 2001 State of Maryland's dashboard: http://mdreportcard.orghttp://mdreportcard.org Dashboards by Example: www.enterprise-dashboard.comwww.enterprise-dashboard.com

10. NTC 2008, New Orleans 10 let’s build one… We spent the rest of the session breaking into teams to build dashboards for a series of imaginary nonprofits.

11. NTC 2008, New Orleans 11 Presenters: Lynn Labieniec, CEO Beaconfire Consulting lynn.labieniec@beaconfire.com lynn.labieniec@beaconfire.com Rusty Burwell, VP Data & Technology American Lung Association rburwell@lungusa.org rburwell@lungusa.org