I recently had the opportunity to give a presentation on database software at Special Services for Groups's (SSG) Peer Learning Gathering. The Peer Learning Gathering, facilitated by SSG and funded by United Way, gives United Way grantees the opportunity to learn different strategies for evaluating program outcomes. Database software can be instrumental to the evaluation process as it can make aggregating agency-wide data much faster and facilitates data analysis.
Unfortunately, chatting with a couple of representatives from the grantee agencies, I heard more about data collection failures than successes. Representatives from two organizations told me that their agencies had once used a database software to collect information on client outcomes, but that front line staff had stopped using it because it was too complex.
This was a huge (and disturbing) surprise to me because database software should be a benefit to front line staff by helping them to organize and share data more easily than in paper files. The failure of these other systems to help the front line staff violates of one of our beliefs about data collection at Idealistics: it should be helpful to everyone involved. If the data collection process does not help clients or front line staff, questions will not be answered honestly or at all.
However, if clients see answering questions as leading to real benefits and case managers find that database software makes their jobs easier (as it should!), data analysts and grant writers will be rewarded with timely and accurate data. This is the real promise of database software.
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