Airtable — A Data Management Solution
I have worked in College Access for nearly a decade and I want to take a moment to share my experience with Airtable. For any practitioner working at a community-based organization or high school with a focus on college access, you know too well the data management conundrum. I am the Director of College Completion at Uncommon Schools, a charter management organization that oversees seven high schools in four different cities in the NE). About a year ago, I went on a hunt to learn about how other organizations are tracking and using data, specifically for college access and success programs. I learned that most organizations are using a variety of databases (Naviance, Salesforce, Filemaker, etc.), but also use Google Docs/Sheets for finances, caseload management, and direct programming. After doing some research, I discovered Airtable. In minutes, I had already laid the groundwork for a new database that has evolved over the course of this year and has proven to vastly improve the way our department tracks and uses data to drive our work. As the screenshots illustrate, we currently have “teams” for each HS guidance department, and within each team, we have “bases” set up to track nearly every data point that we need to support our students in the college process. Also, each team has a separate base for expense tracking — Airtable conveniently tallies our expenses as we enter them into the expense log, so no more waiting for the finance department to send out a monthly budget update. Airtable has streamlined data collection for the college access and success teams at Uncommon and has given us the flexibility to build a database that is truly customized for our needs. If you have a vision for a database and you have even basic skills using excel, Airtable could be a fantastic, cost-effective data management solution. If your organization is already using Google, Airtable offers a well-integrated platform that can run concurrently with your other Google Apps. I am happy to provide more insight to individuals interested in learning more about how Uncommon is currently using Airtable, or to be a thought partner to anyone thinking of using Airtable for their personal or professional needs.
