Skilled volunteer helps nonprofit improve reporting processes, positioning them to improve business decision making and fundraising, so they can help ensure more children in the legal system are able to become safe, healthy and well-educated

Council for Children’s Rights protects and advances the legal rights and development of children through individual representation, community education, and by addressing community-wide issues through systems advocacy, research, and policy work. Their services include:

•  Legal assistance to students facing educational challenges such as discrimination, unlawful exclusion, and inadequate services
• Legal representation of children caught in the middle of high-conflict custody cases in Mecklenburg County
• Legal representation of all children who have been accused of a crime or who face civil commitment to a mental health hospital or residential treatment facility in Mecklenburg County

Council for Children’s Rights leadership reached out to Apparo for help in improving the nonprofit’s reporting capabilities to support fundraising, internal decision making and external stakeholder education for programs to support children. They were matched to volunteer Marshall Worth, of The Data Bull, to assess their needs and help find the best path forward.

Use of SQL Server Management Studio helps nonprofit save 1,000 hours annually, and work more effectively to improve outcomes for children in the legal system

We met Robert Pinka, Director Impact and Policy, to discuss the significance of this work and its anticipated impact. Robert explained that they could not match data between two sources and needed an automated bridge.

Robert explained, “Our client management software did not lend itself to tracking and storytelling about the impact of our work, which is important for reports to current and potential funders, for making decisions about our programs, and for sharing with other organizations so that they can also make important changes to programs. All so that we can do more to help children.

“Before we came to Apparo, we had hired a consultant at almost $200/hour, but it was challenging to explain the context of our work and how our data needed to be translated into useful statistics. Our Apparo volunteer, Marshall, was easy to talk to, and I could be completely transparent about my frustrations. He helped us quickly find the best solution: SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

“We took the time to learn and use SSMS, which has solved all of our reporting issues! With the assurance and suggestions you all made, we were able to save thousands in consulting dollars and create a workflow that enables us to leverage our data in very meaningful ways. We are now creating new reports and also streamlining our past reporting processes, which were ad hoc. We’re saving, at a minimum, about 20 hours per week.”

The new reporting capabilities will deliver important benefits to children in the legal system.

Robert shared, “For example, we can now see that children who are in DSS custody are being confined in mental health centers at a much higher rate and being readmitted more frequently. In order to improve outcomes for these children, hospitals, community partners and foster care agencies need to know this and we’re the only agency that can provide this information. If we aren’t aware of the problem, we can’t fix it. Before this work, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the story.

“We can also use our reporting to better meet the needs of funders and to identify new opportunities to create impactful programming. For example, if we can gather more information about children experiencing domestic violence, that opens up a whole new set of programs and funding opportunities. Without the nuanced reporting that we can now create, we could not have been able to apply for this type of funding or deliver that support.“