“Someone told us we need to do a survey,” the process often begins. A survey is only one piece of a data-driven strategic process, which really begins with articulation of the core issue, and ends with an assessment of how the strategy worked. In this session we will learn the 12 stages of a data-driven process, and show a full illustration of a project. Participants will also learn how to put together a simple one-page project planning brief.

Takeaways:

Rena Cheskis-Gold is a demographer and the founding principal researcher at Demographic Perspectives, LLC, a consulting firm that provides mission-driven demographic, survey, policy, and market research services for non-profits and higher education. For more than 40 colleges and non-profits, Rena has provided custom data and analysis for strategy to be used in planning initiatives, new policy formulation, program assessment, accreditation, and other administrative decision-making. Rena teaches, speaks, and writes regularly on data-driven decision-making for strategy, assessment, communications, and for managing change. She has been a regular guest speaker on utilizing survey research for community and stakeholder strategy at both the Harvard Business School and the Yale School of Management. She holds degrees in Demography and Population Studies from the University of Illinois and Brown University.

Demographic Perspectives was fashioned in response to Rena Cheskis-Gold’s years in-house in the Office of Institutional Research at Yale University. Faculty and staff would often come to her and say, “Someone told us we need a survey. Why, and what do we do next?” The firm employs many methodologies, including surveys, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, data analysis with existing administrative data, and benchmarking. “No one methodology is right or wrong; it depends on the population and stakeholder community, the timeline, the resources, and more,” says Ms. Cheskis-Gold. Demographic Perspectives helps non-profit and higher education organizations solve problems with a true data-driven process, stressing a full strategic outline from articulation of the problem and goals, to data gathering, to a post-project assessment of how well the strategy worked.

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