Analytics in the Field: Using Data Mining to Improve Volunteer Retention

1. Analytics in the Field: Using Data Mining to Improve Volunteer Retention Abram Guerra, Eric WhitneyManojPrakash, Joel Samen December 5, 2011

2. What is Boston Cares? “Boston Cares mobilizes more than 25,000 volunteers annually in support of Greater Boston schools and non-profit agencies. We offer a wide array of programs and opportunities that make it easy for you to volunteer no matter how busy your schedule is.”1 Volunteer Organization with Project Boston Cares 1www.bostoncares.org/about_us

3. Boston Cares Has a Wealth of Data  1,796 Organizations  3,597 Opportunities  20,071 Occurrences  43,531 Volunteers Database

4. Connecting the Dots

5. Missing Data Values

6. Calculated Variable: Distance  Volunteer Home Addresses  Volunteering Locations

7. Our Target Variable Orientation Volunteer Instance Volunteer Instance Time Lifespan

8. Moving to SAS

9. Interesting Initial Findings

10. Setting Up in SAS

11. The Story the Data Tells Us

12. So What? Finding from Data Managerial Recommendation Improve marketing efforts at large-scale events to raise brand awareness of Boston Cares Volunteers who participate in large-scale, one-time events may have no ties to Boston Cares Work with graduate schools to get students involved with Boston Cares, create alumni events that focus on service Volunteers with graduate degrees are more likely to have longer lifespans Increase availability of environment-based community service partnerships, finding more of these kinds of events for participants Volunteers who participate in an environment-based project are likely to have longer lifespans

13. Lessons Learned Data is Often Poorly Documented Scrubbing Data is aFull-Time Job Be Aware of Assumptions SAS is a Tool There is Always More Data You Want