Data For Good: Project delivers outcomes to benefit animal rescue efforts

Harnessing data to improve business has become standard operating procedure in corporations around the world. In the nonprofit sector, limited monetary and human resources presents a unique set of challenges limiting the opportunity and ability to envision and execute data analytics projects.

Through their coursework and a connection with phData’s involvement in the Data for Good project, two teams of Oakland University data analytics students put their skills to work while helping a Midwest nonprofit organization.

Rescue for the rescue

Secondhand Hounds (SHH), a nonprofit animal rescue in Minnesota, has a mission: To make a positive impact on the lives of dogs and cats in its community. The rescue saves animals from kill shelters around the Midwest as well as assists owners who can no longer provide care for their pets.

Like all rescues, it relies on fundraising and grants to fulfill its mission. To support its fundraising outreach, as well as manage the operational intake and outtake of animals, SHH needed more than precious puppy photos. It needed clean data.

“As a foster-based organization, we can only take in animals that we have open foster homes for. We are not a shelter. It's important we understand our capacity, so we only commit to caring for animals we have space for,” says Carrie Openshaw, program director, SHH. “It's not an easy calculation to make with animals entering and leaving the system all the time. Having clean, easily accessible data will really help us understand our limits.”

That’s where the two Oakland University graduate student teams came in to rescue the rescue.

The two teams – comprised of six master’s students in Dr. Vijayan Sugumaran’s Advanced Database and Big Data Management course – took the lead on two data projects for SHH. The goals: Gather, analyze and automate data reporting to allow SHH to apply for grants to support its mission and create a system to keep track of the pets-to-be.

One team built a Power BI tool – an interactive data visualization software – to generate an outcomes spreadsheet for annual reporting. The deliverables included building several dashboards for SHH to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and explore the data more expansively. The tools allow SHH to effectively examine the data for critical managerial insights.

The second team focused on data extraction from two systems to analyze different services provided. To accomplish that, the team set up an extract, transform and load (ETL) process to extract the data from multiple sources, transform them into a usable resource, and load it into the system so end-users can access the information to solve business problems.

“The project was primarily about intakes and outcomes. Understanding where the animals we get come from, what kinds of animals they are, and where they end up,” explains Openshaw. “The way we were keeping data previously required a lot of manual review and manipulation to get a good picture of the health of our adoption program. Now, we can see those key metrics at a glance, and we can see trends which is very helpful.

“The students helped us understand where we needed to clean up our data,” she continues. “In the end having this data at our fingertips will make our jobs so much easier because we can make decisions while seeing data and trends.”

To supplement the ETL, the second team also analyzed the data to build additional Power BI dashboards for managerial decision making.

“Without losing sight of the end goal of this project, the learning experience was a great way to collaborate, share findings and complement each other’s work,” says Andrei Jula, cost engineering development lead, Stellantis, and master of science in business analytics (MSBA) student at OU. “We had to divide and conquer the four main stages of our solutions by automating the data retrieval, modeling, developing the MS Power BI dashboard charts and KPIs, and final presentation.”

A lasting impact

After meeting with the SHH staff virtually to gather information, each team worked to build out tools to address the rescues’ needs. The students presented the solutions to the SHH team, which embraced the new tools. The next step is technology transfer so that SHH staff members can use the applications going forward.

Meeting with SHH and learning the operational functions drove home the underlying need for the projects the teams were working on.

“It made it more interesting and really pushed us to learn the underlying data, ultimately giving us a lot of real-world experience,” says Shalini Sarathy Komandur Chakravarthy, software engineer, Asset Health, and OU MSBA student.  

In addition to putting their analytics and IT management skills to work in a real-life setting, helping a non-profit improve its operations proved rewarding.

Through their coursework and a connection to phData’s Data for Good project, two teams of Oakland University data analytics students put their skills to work while helping Secondhand Hounds (SHH), a nonprofit animal rescue in Minnesota, improve its operations and fundraising outreach.

“I am thankful to Dr. Sugumaran and Second Hand Hounds for this opportunity,” says Chakravarthy. “Interacting with a new team, gathering the requirements, and understanding them in a very short time was a welcome challenge. Collaborations within our team and with SHH via weekly calls hugely helped in this regard,” she says.

“Transforming current and historical data into meaningful insights was a great learning experience,” Jula agrees. “I believe in data driven decisions; I hope the current state of the descriptive project to be expanded to a predictive and prescriptive solution, in which the staff has enough time to prepare for future scenarios.”

The project is continuing in this academic year as the students work to ensure SHH has the technological support to implement and use the powerful new analytics systems.

“This data now feeds into powerful dashboards providing executives with data insights to help drive business decisions as well as facilitating grant applications and contributing to ‘Shelter Animal Counts’ national US Shelter Animals intake/outcomes repository,” says Zahra Kahn, business analyst at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and OU MSBA student. “By deploying our varied perspectives and specialties we were able to build an innovative and cost-effective solution for a great cause.”

Connecting their data analytics coursework to the real-world through interactions with the non-profit offered a great learning experience.

“The students connected the data to the animals and gained a humane side of what can be the result of your work,” says Dr. Sugumaran, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor, management information systems, and chair, Decision and Information Sciences Department, at OU’s School of Business.  “Students work on industry sponsored projects in the capstone class as well as in most of the other classes. Working with non-profits adds another dimension and students gain valuable experience through these projects. They gain not only practical experience working with non-profits but also additional satisfaction of helping a non-profit become more efficient and be successful. This is something that we can’t teach in a classroom setting.

“When you look at just data you do not get that dimension, a dimension you simply can’t teach in class. The work also helps at the financial stage. The Power BI tool generates an outcomes spreadsheet that SHH can use to do annual reporting and applying for grants,” he adds.

“The students developed a solution that SHH can use down the road. The positive results of their work will benefit Second Hand Hounds well into the future.”