Partnership delivers data-driven insights for Variety

A partnership between data consultancy company eliiza and not-for-profit service provider Data4Good has assisted Variety - the Children’s Charity to monitor funding allocation with a view to identifying emerging trends or areas that require attention.

Variety supports kids living with disability, disadvantage or illness. In particular, the organisation provides grants that fill funding gaps, enabling kids to gain mobility, communicate, achieve independence, get out into the community and increase self-esteem.

Data4Good and expert data analyst volunteers from eliiza partnered with Variety Victoria to increase insight on grant distribution. The project analysed Variety’s grant programs to individual children over the past seven years, highlighting areas in need of increased focus and ensuring there was no hidden bias in the allocation process. The project incorporated data enablement, exploratory data analysis, overlaying population data, developing visualisations including maps, writing a summary report, and building interactive dashboards to enable continued insights and a data-conscious approach to granting.

The first part of the project reviewed historical grants awarded for the kids in need. Analysing the individual grant assessment process, eliiza was able to use data from historical grants, ABS data and the data in application to uncover any unconscious bias and provide a process on how the data can assist with proactively removing this during the process of application. The data helped show under-represented geographies, ensuring those that need it most were getting the funding, and highlighted any trends in comparison to ABS data. eliiza was able to utilise the previous work of Data4Good volunteer Robin Visser in calculating LGA statistics.

The project continued with data governance improvements, bringing disparate data sources into a centralised dataset where the Variety team now has a single source of truth. This data governance assessment extended to the review of the Variety application questionnaires where duplicate data was removed and best practice was shared to streamline the application process and yield better-quality data in the future.

“Variety Victoria have been delighted with the breadth and depth of insights and how this will practically translate to changing the lives of kids and communities. Working with the elliza team enabled us to iterate and collaborate on a project that will have long-lasting impact. Thanks to this project, we now know how we can better target support for kids. We cannot wait to work on further projects to change the world for kids,” said Mandy Burns, CEO of Variety Victoria.

Data4Good aims to empower not-for-profits to get more insights out of their data, without cost being a prohibitive factor. It looks to match volunteers with the right data skill sets to organisations that need them. Partnering with eliiza has enabled it to tap into expertise across a range of disciplines, including data analysis, data strategy, data storytelling, data governance and advanced analytics.

For Variety Victoria, eliiza provided a dedicated resource through its traineeship program, dedicating time and effort to Data4Good whilst also developing skills on a real project with the support of a senior eliiza team.

eliiza aims to grow its contribution back to the community and is working with Data4Good to commit team members for delivery of future projects. Data4Good operates pro bono to qualifying not-for-profit organisations in Australia and New Zealand. It leverages a volunteer model to enable it to run many data projects in parallel, helping not-for-profits to maximise their impact. Most projects begin when a not-for-profit reaches out to discuss their data needs.

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