In Use:

CNM-Pact was developed four years ago after the organization went through a strategic planning process. “One of the things that struck us was how much issues had grown over the last ten years,” Weinfurther explained. She went on to explain that issues such as poverty, health care, education and teen pregnancy were getting worse in North Texas despite all sources of giving including government, foundations, and corporations. With these additional resources these issues that plagued North Texas should have improved but they weren’t. It was determined that if these charities had access to reliable data they could show where they were exceeding and where they needed to improve. What came out of that meeting was CNM-Pact.

The service helped charities report data and figures enabling non-profit organizations to report their findings. This in turned helped foundations and funders know where they should invest their money to get the highest social return on investment. Another aspect of CNM-Pact is to give non-profits that they work with with access to data through their SAS Office Analytics and SAS Visualization. This gives charities the ability to share and interpret their findings to stakeholders and investors. Today, CNM-Pact is working with 60 non-profits mainly in the North Texas area.

Technology Needed:

CNM Pact is cloud based, hosted by Amazon Web Services. SAS Office Analytics and Visual Analytics platform helps CNM-Pact uses these tools to assist their clients to help make sense out of their data. These applications save non-profits time and money – allowing them to focus on helping their constituents and less energy on paperwork.

Ease of Use:

With training, the applications are easy to use. How to use the technology is covered during the evaluation and consultation. The consultants – all of which hold a Master’s degree or PhD in data science or a related analytical field are able to advise non-profit organizations on what to data to collect, what their data is telling them  as well as the best way to report on their finds.

Recap:

CNM is a service that brings charities together with consultants to collect and analyse their data to develop data driven outcomes. This consulting project gives organizations clarity on where they need to focus their attention on – whether it’s a certain demographic or town to get the highest amount of social return on investment.

One of the organizations that CNM works with is an emergency homeless shelter called Austin Street Center. When they hired CNM, the shelter was helping 1600 people annually in their community. With CNM-Pact – Austin St. Center concluded that people who came through the program had varying needs. As a result, they tailored their program to fit these individual needs. With CNM-Pact, Austin Street Center is now able to reach 3,000 women with the same amount of funding.

Advantages:

• CNM offers a sliding scale based on a non-profit organization’s operating budget.
• CNM consulting and evaluation professionals help non-profits make the most out of their data
• CNM-Pact software enables charities to continue analysing data after the evaluation has been completed 

Disadvantages:

• The main disadvantage is that CNM itself is only available mainly to charities in the North Texas region (although they do have clients in Seattle and New Jersey). Because CNM is so unique, there really aren’t many (if any) non-profit organizations who offer data consulting and software at an affordable cost.

My Opinion:

I normally write about CRMs, donor management software, event management software- but I’m not sure I’ve ever written about a consulting organization equipped with technology to help non-profits make the most out of their data. I think what CNM is doing is really unique and will enable non-profit organizations to reach more people in their communities. While CNM is only making an impact in North Texas, they are planning on expanding in the future.