CASE STUDY 2

Youth Development
Nonprofit (Washington, D.C.)

Making data accessible for a small team with big goals. 

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW

Type: Youth development nonprofit

Location: Washington, D.C.

Size: Serves 600+ middle and high school youth annually

Mission: Equip young people with academic support, mentorship, and readiness for college and careers

THE CHALLENGE

The nonprofit used multiple spreadsheets, Google Forms, and outdated reports that didn’t line up.

Challenges included:

  • Conflicting attendance numbers
  • Difficulty reporting outcomes to funders
  • No central dashboard for staff to use
  • Staff felt overwhelmed by “technical” data concepts

The team believed BI was “too complicated” for their size.

GOALS & DESIRED OUTCOMES

They wanted:

  • Clean, unified data
  • Easy-to-read dashboards
    A simple system staff could actually use
  • Clear insight into attendance, engagement, and academic outcomes
  • A stronger ability to tell their story to funders

SANDAI’S
APPROACH

SaNDAI delivered an accessible, no-jargon solution by:

  • Conducting a BI readiness session focused on staff comfort

  • Cleaning and standardizing all existing spreadsheets

  • Creating a simple Youth Insights Dashboard

  • Training the team using everyday language—no technical terms

  • Helping leadership define success metrics for grants

THE SOLUTION DELIVERED

  • A central program dashboard showing attendance, trends, engagement, and outcomes

  • A standardized reporting template for funders

  • Clean, organized data files for future use

  • A simple workflow staff could update daily

THE RESULTS

Staff adoption increased to 100%

Program managers now understand their data “at a glance”

Reporting time reduced by over 50%

Improved storytelling for funders and partners

Team feels confident using data for decision-making

IMPACT ON
MISSION

Clear data helped the nonprofit strengthen after-school and mentoring programs, improve retention, and secure new funding for youth services.

WHY THEY CHOSE SANDAI

They needed a partner who spoke their language, removed the fear around data, and built tools that fit their small but mighty team.

WHAT’S NEXT

SaNDAI is now helping the organization implement a youth engagement AI assistant to support attendance improvements.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“We thought BI was out of reach until SaNDAI broke it down in plain English. No tech talk — just clean data, usable dashboards, and a team that finally understands our outcomes.”

— Executive Director