Visualizing Your Foundation and Grantees Using the Blackbaud API and Tableau

Matt Sharp, The Duke EndowmentNatalie Smith, The Duke Endowment

Matt Sharp Natalie SmithDIRECTOR, IT SENIOR ACCOUNTANT

“It will be seen that I have endeavored to make provision in some measure

for the needs of mankind along physical, mental and spiritual lines.”

JAMES BUCHANAN DUKEIndenture of Trust

STRENGTHENING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES BY…

NURTURING CHILDREN

PROMOTING HEALTH

EDUCATING MINDS

ENRICHING SPIRITS

BackgroundTHE DEMAND FOR VISUALIZATION

Meeting Demand

• Internal and external stakeholders wanted an easy to consume data.

• Staff felt that data visualization would be a good fit to help show more, nuanced data in a way that is easy to consume.

• Improved data visualization can lead to more data informed decisions

• A cross-departmental, internal working group, the Viz Team, formed to explore data visualization.

• Visualizing Blackbaud Grantmaking data was a key driver as staff continued to input more data around grant outcomes and outputs.

• Several BI tools were explored, including Tableau, Power BI and other Gartner Magic Quadrant

Why Tableau?

• Staff person with Tableau experience

• Drag and drop functionality seemed approachable forour staff designers

• Engaging, easy to interpret dashboards

• Ease of final dashboard sharing, internally and externally

• Exciting Tableau community and learning resources, eg Tableau Public

• Free Tableau desktop client for learning and for proving value

• Direct discounts for Tableau desktop and online for moreadvanced work (foundations not eligible on TechSoup)

• Microsoft Excel is an inexpensive and useful data source even for expert Tableau users

Connecting Tableau and Blackbaud GrantmakingAN ITERATIVE PROCESS

Initial Connections• Initially reached out to Blackbaud and Tableau to

introduce the two companies and set the stage for the goal of making a data connection.

• Valuable advice from Lee Feinberg at DecisionViz.com

• Although Blackbaud had an API functional at the time, it did not have everything that Tableau needed to make a connection.

• Tableau helped us connect to an outside vendor, Daugherty Business Solutions, who could build a Web Data Connector from Blackbaud Grantmaking to Tableau.

Web Data Connector: extracts BBGM data, stores it in the cloud and converts it to be used with Tableau.

Making a Connection

• After initial exploration, Daugherty and Blackbaud realized that to make the web data connector operational the API would need to be tweaked.

• Blackbaud’s Foundation Solutions team worked with us and Daugherty to update the API, an update that will now work for all users of the API.

• Daugherty helped establish a location at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where the data lives for use in Tableau.

• Daugherty then made the first connection to Blackbaud Grantmaking Data and confirmed data integrity.

We’re Connected!

• Data is now in Tableau and readyto create visualizations.

• Amount of data is daunting and the first step was to ensure all data was represented appropriately.

• e.g. are dates formatting as dates

• First visualization focused on a “proof of concept” strategy to ensure the data could be visualized the way staff hoped.

• Currently we are rolling our Tableau capabilities to all staff and beginning to grow their technical skills.

What did we learn?

What would we do…

All over again

• Have the same wonderful partners at Tableau, Blackbaud and Daugherty who were committed to finishing the project.

• Finding the right firm with Daugherty who knew what needed to happen to build the web data connector. We went through two previous firms.

• Staying positive and committed to the goal of a connection between Blackbaud and Tableau

Anything to avoid repeating

• The slow pace of developing a new technical tool and connection.

• There was so much to learn along the way for everyone that it took a long time to be operational.

• Being reticent about our timeline, goals and check-in points.

• We should have taken stronger ownership of the project’s management.

Now, for what you’ve all been waiting for…..

A LIVE TABLEAU VISUALIZATION

https://public.tableau.com/en-us/gallery/when-best-time-visit-japan?tab=viz-of-the-day&type=viz-of-the-day

@mattsharp

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