We've all been in some variation of this situation before: your management team or board gathers for a meeting to make important decisions about where to allocate funds, invest professionals' time, or where to set tuition or fees. Very often, the decision is made using anecdotal information by the person in the room who carries the most weight. However, Measuring Success' experience working with hundreds of not for profit organizations reveals that most of the time, the instincts about where the problem lies are simply incorrect. It's natural after all, to make decisions based on anecdotes or stories coming from familiar or powerful people. So what's the alternative? Data-driven decision making.

We recently conducted a perception survey in collaboration with the PEJE foundation that included over 6,500 parents in 36 private day schools across North America. We used parents' "likelihood to recommend the school to a friend" as the proxy for a school's overall perceived quality: it is the best measure of retention and therefore the ultimate predictor of enrollment growth.

During our on-site consultations we asked boards and administrators to hypothesize which parent groups perceived that quality was higher. Schools listed hypotheses based on grades level, tuition paid, etc. In 8 out of 10 cases, the hypothesis was rejected by the data we analyzed. For example, one school confidently argued, "I know that parents who receive tuition assistance are the happier because they get such good value." However, the data for this school showed just the opposite: parents receiving more tuition assistance rated lower on perceived quality of the education.

Why is this significant? All organizations are operating today with constrained human and financial resources. If decisions are made on instinct rather than data, precious resources are obviously wasted. Data allows organizations to get an accurate picture of the perceptions of their full stakeholder body, not the few who are most vocal. While our clients were surprised that many of their preconceived notions were untrue, we worked with the organization to change their decision making process to be hypothesis based and data driven.

Of course, collecting, analyzing, and understanding data can be arduous and difficult, and that's where Measuring Success comes in. We design data-collection tools, analyze data, and help organizations use the findings to make data-driven decisions. These decisions can affect spending on programs as well as the ability to raise funds-- all contributing directly to the strategic and financial viability of your organization. To learn more about how Measuring Success can help your organization make data driven strategic decisions please contact me at Sacha-newsletter@measuring-success.com.

Sacha.