Big Data, Crowdfunding and the Fundraising Technology Craze

“Data can be overwhelming, and if you are not careful, it can be distracting,” she says. “Sometimes people focus on the nitty-gritty of the numbers and tackling exact numbers day by day instead of looking at the bigger picture of using data to inform strategy.”

Business process has a huge effect on data analysis. Due to the nature of silos and data entry, sometimes there is a lag time between different data sets. For instance, when an event sponsor registers vs. when the check actually gets recorded into the finance system can differ, which means the dashboards may not match due to this lag. And sometimes one department might pull reports once a week while another pulls reports once a month, leading to more lag.