Projects
The DeBruce Foundation: Data Analysis to Derive Big Picture Insights
Data Cleaning; Data Analysis; Data Visualization
Background: The Agile Work Profiler (AWP) is a unique career development tool developed by The DeBruce Foundation and informed by research to engage students and others in assessing their career opportunities. Participants taking the AWP assessment answer a series of questions about their strengths and interests that are utilized to identify their top skillsets, titled "agilities". The DeBruce Foundation sought to improve their understanding of the diverse audiences and assessment results across multiple years of AWP administration.
Results: PorchLight Insights worked to merge and clean multiple datasets to create a cohesive source for data analysis and also a replicable process for the future. In coordination with DeBruce Foundation staff, PorchLight Insights identified key analysis questions of interest and then analyzed and visualized the data to illustrate major takeaways.
Stakeholder Engagement Design; Planning and Implementation; Facilitation; Report Writing
Mid-America Regional Council: Gathering Feedback to Build Better Data Tools
Background: Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) responded to a growing regional interest in affordable housing in the Kansas City metropolitan area by convening the Regional Housing Partnership with their partner LISC Greater Kansas City. The Regional Housing Partnership studies, plans, supports and facilitates the preservation and creation of affordable housing units while strengthening the capacity of civic infrastructure to address housing challenges on an ongoing basis. As part of the Regional Housing Partnership, MARC launched the Housing Data Hub to collect and facilitate access to data relevant to the issue of housing. MARC understood that the Housing Data Hub would be a better resource if stakeholders' voices were part of its development. MARC staff sought PorchLight Insights’ assistance in gathering feedback about the Data Hub due to our dual expertise in housing data and stakeholder engagement.
Results: PorchLight Insights designed and implemented a stakeholder engagement process for MARC focused on understanding the problems, solutions, and data that were most important to local housing advocates and local government staff. PorchLight Insights identified key stakeholders, managed scheduling and invitations, and facilitated five virtual meetings for housing advocate stakeholders. The focus group sessions were structured so that feedback could be aggregated and compared across meetings. PorchLight Insights then delivered a report to MARC synthesizing the housing community's thoughts and interests to help inform the evolution of the Regional Housing Partnership and the Housing Data Hub.
County of Santa Barbara, CA: Guiding Internal Processes
Process Improvement; Stakeholder Engagement; Data Infrastructure Review; Report Writing
Background: Santa Barbara County, California uses a continuous improvement mindset to drive change for their county operations. Like most government entities, they produce a variety of policy and financial documents that lay out near- and long-term goals. In 2022, PorchLight Insights worked alongside County staff to gather stakeholder feedback and lay out a roadmap to guide the annual Capital Improvements Plan document.
Results: PorchLight Insights led several focus groups with executive leaders and staff from departments to understand the process of gathering and submitting data and information that populate the plan. This valuable feedback then allowed PorchLight Insights to work with staff responsible for producing the plan to streamline and standardize how the plan is built. In addition, PorchLight Insights used their extensive knowledge of data management to help County staff create a centralized and searchable database that can be used for data collection in the future. The end product was a co-created guidebook that incorporates stakeholder feedback, recommended process improvements and examples of best practices in Capital Planning.
Community Alliance of St. Joseph, Missouri: Maximizing the Value of a Community Survey
Survey Design; Data Analysis; Data Storytelling
Background: The Community Alliance of St. Joseph, Missouri works with its public, nonprofit, and private sector partners to promote a shared vision for the community through collective input from citizens, including a biannual community survey. Recently, the Community Alliance has worked to shepherd the Imagine St. Joseph 2040 future plan that lays out a vision for community priorities and investment. The Community Alliance asked PorchLight Insights to help align their survey instrument to their strategic plan, in order to maximize the value of the input gathered from community members.
Results: PorchLight Insights worked in tandem with St. Joseph's survey administration partner, ETC Institute, a national leader in community survey administration, to understand the history of the survey instrument and trends in survey data. In collaboration with Community Alliance staff and board members, PorchLight Insights recommended a reorganized and streamlined survey instrument that provides key input on strategic plan goals. After survey administration was complete, PorchLight Insights undertook a deep dive into survey results to identify key insights and takeaways, which were presented to the Community Alliance board along with related recommendations.
KC Healthy Kids: Telling the Story of our Urban Foodshed
Data Analysis; Data Visualization; Data Storytelling; Digital Report Production
Background: KC Healthy Kids, along with partnering organizations Cultivate KC, Mid-America Regional Council and New Growth, received funding from the USDA Regional Food System Partnerships program to create a plan to connect and strengthen the Kansas City regional foodshed. A significant amount of primary and secondary data was collected in the first year of the project, from sources including multiple surveys, regional focus groups, and federal data sets. KC Healthy Kids needed to hone in on the key insights and share them with project stakeholders in order to move forward with creating actionable strategies for the project.
Results: PorchLight Insights systematically reviewed the data findings to identify and illustrate key themes and takeaways in an Assessment Report (related one-pager documents were also created for use in community engagement). We met with the project steering committee to discuss the overall data context, including data availability and quality. For the project culmination, we partnered with KC Healthy Kids to build a digital Action Plan outlining the key findings and resulting strategies for the project.