Opinion: Tracey Gyateng—‘The charity sector should be queuing up to work with our free, amazing data scientists—but no’
Data scientists can predict which service users might disengage from programmes, and create strategies instead to retain them. But charities currently massively undervalue their services, and therefore fail to exploit the tools that have driven the success of organisations like Netflix, Google and Spotify. DataKind UK’s data science manager calls for urgent change.
I have a confession to make. I am a data geek. I am always super-excited to talk about data and digital, which to my mind are completely intertwined. I have been working with and playing around with data for the past 16 years — and I absolutely love it.
DataKind UK is a small charity, but we punch above our weight because of our large network of volunteer data scientists. (Just so that we’re all on the same page, a data scientist is someone that mixes statistics and computer science coding. If you watch Netflix and get recommended romantic comedies, then it’s usually a data scientist that’s behind that.)
Right support, right time
But how can we use the power of data science within the charity sector? What if we use data and statistics to better understand which people are most likely to disengage with programmes? How can we recommend useful projects and programmes they should be interacting with? And when is the right time to be working with someone to ensure that they’re not disengaged?
That’s what we’re trying to do at DataKind UK. We do this in a number of ways. Light-touch support, in-depth data science projects, all for free.
And so you’d think the charity sector would be queuing up to work with us because of our amazing data scientists. These scientists are normally very expensive and work at cool places like Google and Spotify.
But no. It could be because we’re a small charity and maybe we’re not so great on communication. But it’s also about the value that many organisations place on this kind of work. The charity sector is busy doing such amazing, good work. For us, then, it is about trying to support them and prioritising the type of work.
Why does this make a difference? What is this really going to help me to do when I’m actually already doing really good stuff? We hear great case studies and stories from charities making use of digital data — and that’s exciting.
But we need more, and more of them to reach the world beyond digital and data geeks like me. We need to take it out into the world and inspire organisations to do more of this work.
We also need to do more in terms of providing practical guidance, such as has been put together by Zoe Amar with the Charity Digital Code of Practice. I’d like more of this please. Let’s create programmes that really meet people where they are and helps them to move on when it’s proportionate and when it’s really valuable and useful to them.
We’re not going to be able to do all this without working in collaboration. As a small charity we could not do anything without our partners. They include Superhighways, 360Giving and RnR. If we’re going to build and push the sector onwards using digital, it is going to be all about this kind of partnership work.
This is an edited version of a talk given by Tracey at the inaugural gathering of the Catalyst programme in London on 11 July 2019
