How Nonprofits Can Benefit From Big Data Articles Chief Data Officer

The nature of outreach has changed dramatically in recent years for many nonprofits, with the digital age and the rise of social media meaning that it now takes place primarily online. This opens up a wealth of new opportunities, and looking at the data can help decision makers in nonprofits identify how best to exploit these. Nonprofits can analyze the unstructured data from their Twitter and Facebook feeds to determine how best to approach a fundraising campaign, determine user sentiment, and pinpoint how it could be made more effective. This is done using natural language processing (NLP), a technology that derives understanding from unstructured data such as written text, to determine the ways users are currently posting about issues related to your cause to help create a campaign they will respond to and target them based on demographics. Sentiment analysis can then ensure that the campaign is having an impact, looking at metrics such as likes and shares, as well as using NLP again to see how people are responding in their tweets and updates.