LINC's data system innovations highlighted by Social Solutions
LINC’s partnership with the Steve Ballmer-backed Social Solutions data revolution is turning heads.
Social Solutions, an Austin-based software company serving nonprofit organizations, recently highlighted LINC’s “innovative ways” in leveraging data in a blog post.
LINC, “a nonprofit trailblazer . . . has been pushing the boundaries of public-private collaboration in the name of supporting families across the Kansas City community,” Social Solutions reported.
This was the kind of partnership that Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, imagined when the Ballmer Group with his wife, Connie, invested $59 million to support Social Solutions’ work.
LINC’s work with Social Solutions, Ballmer said at the Impact Summit in Austin earlier this year, is pursuing “the Holy Grail of impact.”
Too often, Ballmer said, nonprofit service organizations measure only the amount of activity — such as the number of kids in a program. Other times they are able to measure the impact of a program on a child’s attendance, or a child’s academic performance at a point in time.
But the third level of measured impact — that “Holy Grail,” Ballmer said — means being able to see if the arc of a child’s life trajectory is changed.
From the Social Solutions Blog
“The work LINC is doing in Kansas City to try to assure supplemental services around a child in the school system is really amazing,” Ballmer said.
Impact can also come in tangible efficiencies — as when LINC this year put Social Solution’s Apricot software to work creating an online enrollment process for its before- and after-school programs.
In its blog post, Social Solutions recounted how LINC was able to save 85 days worth of time and turn more resources toward improving its work with children.
Consider that LINC each fall had to process handwritten enrollment forms for more than 6,000 students within six weeks. At three pages each, the enrollment forms amounted to 18,000 pieces of paper to be entered into computer systems.
From the Social Solutions Blog
Then LINC and Social Solutions created one online form.
The form, which could be accessed on a mobile device or PC, in English or Spanish, ended up being exactly what LINC needed, and what families wanted.
The online process was liberating for LINC staff. By drastically reducing the need to enter information manually, LINC staff saved the equivalent of 85 days’ or 17 weeks’ worth.
Ballmer said the technology helps non-profits become more efficient allowing them to better focus on outcomes.
“That is the stuff that (we) have learned through our LINC experience,” Ballmer said. “The ability to engage in more activity at lower cost and actually make significant impact in kids lives — I’m very excited about that.”