Hylaine volunteers support nonprofit in software selection of Tableau to create efficiencies needed to expand reach to more under-resourced students and spark lasting generational change
Carolina Youth Coalition (CYC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that nurtures and prepares high-achieving, under-resourced students to enter, excel in, and graduate from college so they can spark lasting generational change and return to their communities as leaders, innovators, and advocates for others. Their programs promote intellectual and emotional exploration and risk-taking by offering programs that allow students to think and express themselves freely.
CYC reached out to Apparo for assistance to analyze and report on their data. Apparo matched CYC to a Hylaine skilled volunteer team through this application selection Community Impact Project. This volunteer worked alongside CYC to assess their processes and their current software capabilities to create a business process and requirements document. Following the assessment, the volunteer team helped CYC select Tableau as the right application.
Carolina Youth Coalition Nonprofit Team: Aaron Randolph, Maria Diaz, JaDora Ross
Hylaine Volunteer Team: Krishna Avva, Cathryne Highley, Ethan Miller, Chrissy Reed, Penelope Sendek
After the project was completed, we met with Aaron Randolph, Executive Director, to discuss the significance of this work and the anticipated impact. Aaron shared, “The frustration is that we have the data and cannot access it in the way we need.” He provided an overview of their pain points coming into this project:
- Time wasted pulling and consolidating data from multiple sources
- Inability to visualize trends/outcomes
- Limited storytelling capabilities
- Limited, reactive data-driven decision making
- Staff frustration and data entry errors due to complexity of Excel-based systems
Upon implementation of Tableau, Aaron anticipates:
- Significant time savings around data gathering and reporting – anticipate to take 1/3 of the time, saving 500+ hours annually. (Currently estimated as approximately 35% of a full time role and expected to decrease to 10%.)
- Increased revenue due to improved ability to demonstrate impact and customize storytelling to individual donor areas of interest
- Improved, proactive decision making to improve program outcomes
- Improved access to data for college counseling – helping students estimate costs and likelihood of acceptance (also motivating graduates to share their admissions data, knowing it has a real positive impact)
- Potential cost savings, by not needing to implement a more expensive CRM
- Improved job satisfaction through ability to see impact and ease of data-related processes
Importantly, the benefits help position CYC to deepen the effectiveness of their student support and meet their goal of tripling the students they serve by 2028.
Aaron explained, “This work gives us the infrastructure we need for our growth. The more students we serve, the more data we gather, the increased urgency of the need for the right infrastructure. We’re well on our way of meeting our 5 year goal of tripling the number of high school students we serve by 2028.”
