Empowering Communities Through Data

Data For Good is a collective of do gooders, who want to use their powers for good, and not evil, to help make our communities better through data.

We help other not for profit, and non-governmental, organizations harness the power of their data to make more informed and better decisions in their quest to make their communities flourish.

Who we are

The team in Regina is led by Kevin Hayes and a host of other volunteers who are committed to making an impact through data in Regina.

We are a community of data professionals who provide pro-bono data analytics services to registered charities, non governmental  and not for profit organizations.

Our aim is to unlock insights which may be lurking within your data assets that can support your strategic planning activities and improve your operational efficiency.

How we can help

Many non-profit organizations collect data from a variety of sources during the normal course of operations, including details on funding, campaigns, resource allocation and the clients they serve. Over time all such systems accrue vast amounts of data that can support the organization’s strategic decision making.

In-house data can be combined with external data from open sources such as census and economic data from government repositories like Statistics Canada. On past engagements, clients have been interested in, for example,

• understanding how to better target their donor base
• analysing their volunteers and where best to engage them
• optimising the locations of food banks

The output of our analysis is made up primarily of different types of visualisations. We use several types of tools ranging from Excel and Tableau to create charts and dashboards, to more sophisticated statistical software packages like R and Python for regression and time series analysis.

Data for Good can assist in a variety of ways depending on your needs. The engagement begins with a consultation with the Data Ambassador (the contact for the project) in order to assess how we can best add value and the feasibility of the engagement.

It is worth noting that you do not need to have any specific business questions in mind at the time of the engagement. Data for Good is often brought in for an undirected general exploration of trends and other interesting correlations that exist within the data. Usually this will then guide further analysis by prompting interest in drilling down deeper into specific subjects. Regular checkpoints with the client ensure that the ‘wheat’ remains separated from the ‘chaff’.