Detailed information on thousands of nonprofit agencies throughout the state is becoming available online through the Connecticut Nonprofit Strategy Platform, a data-sharing website that was unveiled May 16 at the Best Practices for Nonprofits Conference at the Farmington Marriott.
The platform is being developed by the Connecticut Data Collaborative and the University of Connecticut Nonprofit Leadership Program in partnership with the Washington D.C.-based Urban Institute. Although it is still in the developmental and experimentation phase, it is accessible at http://nccsweb.urban.org/communityplatform/ct.
The platform is primarily designed to facilitate cross-sharing of data among nonprofits and state agencies, according to David Garvey, director of both the project and UConn Nonprofit Leadership Program.
“It’s really breaking down the silos,” Garvey said. “By getting better information, we can make better decisions from a public policy standpoint. The nonprofit sector often doesn’t come up with the appropriate justification for the funding they need, so this will give them an opportunity to do that, which will bring about better public policy decisions.”
For example, the site includes a financial analyzer tab that provides digitized information from the 990 federal tax returns filed by nonprofits. This will enable state agencies and other entities that provide funding to see how individual organizations use their money, and compare the financial health of similar organizations that operate within the same general budget range. Information is available from 990 forms spanning the past 10 years.
“This gives nonprofits an opportunity to tell their stories,” Garvey said, adding that Connecticut spends about $2 billion per year on contracts to about 1,500 nonprofits that provide various services to the state.
Bob Santy, chairman of the Connecticut Data Collaborative’s steering committee, said the financial analyzer will be one of the platform’s most important features. “Funders will be really interested to see what percentage of their funds go to certain things,” he said. “It will encourage nonprofits to adopt best-management practices.”
The platform also features a mapping component that enables users to locate nonprofit services in any area of the state. Searches can be filtered in a number of ways, including by city, county, zip code, distance to specific schools, organization type, and activities such as arts, education and health care. The site then generates a map of the area selected featuring an icon for each nonprofit in the area. Clicking on the icon brings up the name of the organization in the form of a clickable link to more detailed information about it, including contact information, a map to its location, a list of the programs it provides, financial data, and links to its 990 forms.
Among other things, the mapping feature enables users to “identify what assets we have to address certain problems we have in our state,” Garvey said. “For example, we can see which nonprofits deal with something like unemployment, and we can see where there are gaps or a general lack of services.” The site will be further enhanced by the addition of community indicators such as education, health, employment, and housing information.
The data for the platform is being provided by two sources. Information for larger organizations comes from the IRS, but data on smaller service providers that aren’t required to file 990 forms — local soup kitchens, for example — is being supplied by United Way of Connecticut’s 2-1-1 information and referral service.
Garvey stresses that the platform is neither perfected nor complete yet. There is more work to be done on Community Impact Circles, a tool designed to help users communicate and share data with each other through screen-sharing conference calls, document sharing, and other Web-based communication. Community Impact Circles will also include project management and outcomes measurement tools, as well as learning resources on best practices in collaboration.
Garvey said the project also continues to face technological challenges. The site uses Google Maps, but developers are trying to incorporate Weave, a more powerful Web-based visualization and analysis technology for displaying data graphically that is already used by the Connecticut Data Collaborative’s site. Tutorials are also under development.
However, the platform is “getting close” to completion, according to Garvey. “We hope to be ready for a full launch by fall, but it could end up being sooner,” he said.
Funding for the project comes from an initial grant of about $900,000 over three years from the Connecticut Health and Education Facilities Authority, an early force in the project’s design and development. While no plan is yet in place for further funding when that money runs out, Garvey does not foresee that maintaining the platform will be expensive.
Susan Dunn, president and CEO of United Way of Central and Northeast Connecticut, said she is excited about the benefits the new platform will provide. “We’ll be able to map nonprofit organizations in certain geographic areas, telling us what services are there and where the gaps are,” she said. “We’ll be able to make better decisions because our decisions will be informed by facts.”
