Transform

After hearing you speak, I felt inspired to take action. I have a lot of ideas, but rarely take action on those ideas. I often fall victim to the no time, tools, talent excuses. You inspired me to get past those and take action on my ideas. The exercise we did to talk to others about my ideas was also great in that it gave me more confidence about my idea.Your presentation style was great. It was very easy to follow and filled with good personal anecdotes to draw us in and feel more connected to you and your story. The best part about it, though, was that you inspired action.

With their new book, Data Science for Fundraising, Ashutosh and Rodger have done a wonderful and humorous job in addressing the challenges, pitfalls and joys of creating a data analytics program. Their thoughtful and generous sharing of ideas (and code!) that users can put to use immediately is incredibly helpful, but the time spent on the importance of developing the "people skills" required to create an effective program is what I found most valuable. Having lived through this process with Ashutosh many years ago, I appreciated that they address topics like the messiness and persistence needed to be successful, the need to know your audience and gain their trust, the need for experimentation and continuous improvement, and – most importantly - the necessity of creating "actionable" business intelligence that is adopted by the organization vs. the lure of answering lots of "interesting" questions. A great addition to any fundraiser’s or data analyst’s library.