Nonprofit data analysis for clearer decisions.
I help nonprofits make sense of program, fundraising, and finance data. Get consistent metrics, useful dashboards, and board and funder reports you can explain, using the tools your team already has.
No prep needed. Messy spreadsheets welcome.
| Source | FY26 gifts |
|---|---|
| Donor CRM | $1,284,500 |
| Accounting system | $1,038,200 |
| Difference | $246,300 |
which number goes in the annual report??
What questions can your data answer?
Start with the questions your team needs answered.
Which programs are reaching people?
Compare participation and outcomes across programs and time periods, with duplicate records and unclear definitions addressed.
What’s changing in fundraising?
Understand donor retention and giving trends, and reconcile differences between CRM and accounting totals.
What needs attention right now?
Use a Tableau or Power BI dashboard to spot changes, explore the detail, and keep recurring reports current.
You get the analysis, clear definitions, and a walkthrough of the findings and their limits.
Sound familiar?
Common reporting problems. You don’t need to know the cause, just which one keeps you up before a deadline.
- 01The donor CRM says one total, the books say another, and finance ends up being the tiebreaker.
- 02“How many people did we serve?” gets three different answers depending on who you ask.
- 03Restricted and unrestricted funds live in a side spreadsheet only one person understands.
- 04The board packet gets rebuilt by hand every quarter.
- 05There’s a dashboard. Nobody opens it.
What you get from nonprofit data and reporting help
We agree on the deliverables before work starts. Depending on the project, you’ll leave with:
Totals you can explain
Your donor CRM and accounting totals compared side by side, with the reasons they differ written down.
Definitions everyone uses
Agreed, written definitions for numbers like people served, donor retention, and outcomes.
Reports that refresh
Board, program, and funder reports that update from your data instead of being rebuilt by hand.
A dashboard built for your team
Fixes to the dashboard you already have, built around the questions your team actually asks.
A fix-first plan
Not sure where to start? Written findings and a prioritized plan before you spend on fixes.
Documentation you keep
A runbook and a handoff walkthrough, so your team can keep things running.
Download the illustrative metric dictionary (CSV) Fictional definitions showing how a metric, source, owner, and validation rule fit together.
First things first: your donors’ and clients’ data stays protected.
Before I touch anything, we agree on exactly what I can see, how I get to it, and for how long.
Access is agreed up front
Which systems, what level of access, and for how long, all settled before work starts.
Sample data first
Where it makes sense, we start with sample or de-identified data before anything real.
Your admin holds the keys
Permissions go through your administrator, who can change or remove them at any time.
You keep everything
Everything built stays yours, with documentation and a handoff walkthrough if you bring it in-house.
Ongoing help, or one focused fix.
Scope and price are agreed in writing. Any extra work needs your approval.
Fractional BI Support
For recurring board, program & funder reporting
15 hours a month with set priorities and regular check-ins. It’s like having a senior data person on staff, part-time.
Reporting Reality Check
Start here if you’re not sure what’s wrong
I review up to three reports or dashboards and hand you written findings plus a fix-first plan. View the illustrative example.
Reporting Automation
For the export-copy-paste routine
Less manual exporting, copying, and cleanup behind your board, program, and funder reports.
Dashboard Rescue
For the dashboard nobody opens
I fix wrong calculations, slow loading, and confusing layouts in the dashboard you already have.
Need something that doesn’t fit a package, like a new dashboard or work across several systems? That’s custom BI consulting.
Putting this in a budget? Doing this in-house could mean hiring a data engineer, a database administrator, a visualization engineer, an analyst, or some mix of them. I handle the full stack, for less than the cost of one full-time hire. Work like this can also fit a capacity-building grant, so it’s worth asking your program officer.
Who you’ll be working with
I bring 15+ years of experience across reporting, dashboards, and data engineering. The person on your first call is the person doing the work.
We agree on priorities, access, and scope before work starts. You keep the documentation and everything I build. To see the kind of findings you can expect, take a look at the illustrative Reporting Reality Check example below.
An illustrative Reporting Reality Check
Not a slide deck full of buzzwords. A plain-English list of what’s wrong, why it matters, and what to fix first, in an order your team can actually get through.
what a useful finding looks like
“People served” is counted three different ways.
Program staff count enrollments, the grant report counts unique participants, and the dashboard counts visits. All three are labelled “people served.”
Why it matters: the number in your annual report can’t be traced back to the number your funder sees.
30 days
Agree on what “people served” means and write it down.
60 days
Update the source data so every report uses it.
90 days
Retire the old counts and confirm the numbers match.
Things people ask first
Our board meeting is in three weeks. Can you help?
Send me the date and what needs to be ready. We’ll agree on scope and a delivery date before anything starts, and I’ll be honest if it isn’t doable.
How much of our staff’s time will this take?
Someone to walk me through the reports, set up access, and answer questions. We agree on how much up front, and nobody has to clean anything up first.
Do we need new software or a data warehouse?
No. I start with the tools you already have and only suggest something new if it really can’t be done otherwise.
Can you help with grant and funder reports?
Yes. I pull the numbers together, track down mismatches, and make recurring reports faster. You still write the grant.
Where should we start?
If you have recurring reporting needs, monthly support is usually the best fit. If you’re not sure what’s causing the problem, start with a Reporting Reality Check and get a clear plan first.
How does pricing work?
Projects have published starting prices, and ongoing support is a monthly plan. Either way, we agree on scope, hours, and the final price before any work begins, and extra work always gets your OK first.
Our data is a mess. Is that a problem?
Not at all. Scattered spreadsheets, inconsistent exports, and systems that don’t talk to each other are where most nonprofits start. Nobody has to clean anything up before we begin.
Will you work with our donor CRM and accounting system?
Yes. Whatever your team already uses is where we start. I’ve likely worked with it, and if not, I’ll get up to speed quickly.
How will we know what you can take on each month?
Hours, priorities, deadlines, and how we’ll communicate are set up front. If a new request comes in, we talk about it before it adds work or cost.
What if we bring this in-house later?
Everything I build is yours. Your team keeps full access, plus documentation, and we can plan a handoff walkthrough so they can run it on their own.
Let’s take reporting off your team’s plate.
Tell me about it on a free 30-minute call. Worst case, you leave with a clearer idea of what to fix first.