Free analytics tool released to not-for-profit organisations

The online tool has been developed by Ramon Wenzel at the University of Western Australia's Centre for Social Impact (CSI).

Data collected from organisations will contribute to the Australian Not-for-profit Workforce Study, which the CSI intends to share widely.

In the last edition of Community Directors Intelligence (October 2018), we cited CSI studies showing that proper investment in governance training for not-for-profits generates a 6:1 return on investment in terms of the value and impact created.

The CSI now hopes to build on that 2015 research by harvesting more data about not-for-profit performance for its workforce study. In return, it will provide that information to participating organisations to allow them to benchmark themselves.

The CSI describes its workforce study as the country's first large-scale effort to "identify what matters most for making not-for-profit work more developmental, healthy, meaningful, and productive".

The centre's research goals cover:

• Learning in the sector, including developing talent, innovation and impact
• The well-being and engagement of staff and volunteers
• Core competencies such as the knowledge, skills and abilities needed in the sector
• The diversity of the sector, and needs of the workforce in different areas
• Better job design for not-for-profit work, and
• How to develop and share leadership.

The centre says its analytics tool and dashboard provides organisations more than 30 metrics they can use to compare themselves with others.

The product is free to all Australian not-for-profits.

The study has the financial support of the Australian Research Council, EY (formerly Ernst and Young), Australian Scholarships Foundation, and Australian Executor Trustees, although no data is shared with those partners.