Olson Analytics

Nonprofits and public agencies · Bedford, NH

Your staff didn't take the job to fight with a spreadsheet.

A grant application that's hard to fill out favors the organizations with the most capacity. I'm Nate Olson. I help nonprofits and public agencies find where their systems are working against them and fix it, usually with the tools they already have.

Email me nate@olsonanalyticsllc.com

How I work

Scope first. Most problems arrive as a symptom.

Most people bring me a problem that isn't quite the real problem yet. Why can't anyone find the current version of this document? Why don't these numbers match? My first job is to scope it down until we arrive at something that can actually be fixed.

I ask a lot of questions, I craft a lot of examples, and I love a template. In most systems, early decisions are hard to undo. When I set up a grant program, for example, I walk through the whole life of a grant with the people who'll run it:

  • What does an applicant see, and in what order?
  • What does a reviewer need in front of them?
  • What will staff need to learn from grantee reports two years from now?

I'm most useful when you've tried to fix something a few times and new heads keep appearing on the hydra.

If you already know exactly what needs doing, I'm probably not your best bet.

Recent work

Three projects, big and small.

NH Community Development Finance Authoritywith GO-NORTH

A rural health grant program

New Hampshire is putting capital money into rural health infrastructure through a program CDFA runs under GO-NORTH. It's CDFA's first program with a pre-application and the first with an outside organization involved in a review stage, and the GO-NORTH team was new to the grants system.

How the program runs
  1. 01Pre-applicationNew for CDFA
  2. 02First reviewCDFA and GO-NORTH
  3. 03Full applicationSecond stage
  4. 04Second reviewCDFA and GO-NORTH
  5. 05AwardCapital money

Most of my work happened before the program opened.

Every confusing question on an application costs a rural provider time they'd otherwise spend on patients. It also shapes who applies at all, and this program is meant to reach small organizations as well as the ones with a grants team.

NH Community Development Finance Authority

The thank-you letters

CDFA sends a thank-you letter for every tax credit donation. They came out of the grants system with broken formatting, so staff fixed each one by hand. I worked with the team to fix the report, and now the letters only need a review before they go out.

~320Letters last year
76Fixed by hand last December
0Need fixing now
A New Hampshire nonprofit

Donation records in three places

Their donation records lived in three places that didn't agree, so nobody could say with confidence where fundraising stood. I built a way to reconcile them, and along the way found the bookkeeping and donor systems might connect directly. If that works, the spreadsheet goes away, along with most of the reconciling I built.

Bookkeeping softwaresource 1
Donor databasesource 2
Spreadsheetmay go away
One number for where fundraising standsReconciled today. Next, connect bookkeeping and donor systems directly.

How I got here

Clarkson · Semester at Sea · City Year · Olson Analytics

I studied engineering and management at Clarkson. Semester at Sea, 12 countries in about four months, left me wanting to work closer to the choices that shape people's standard of living. The entry-level engineering jobs I was reading about didn't feel like they'd change anything for anyone, so I joined City Year.

I spent three years as a corps member with City Year New Hampshire. City Year corps members aren't credentialed teachers. We showed up every day for students who needed someone in their corner, and those students made real academic gains. The organizations I work with are full of people like that. I want the systems around them to give them more time with the people they serve.

After my third year, I started working part time as a data analyst for City Year Providence. Other sites asked for help too, so I set up Olson Analytics and went on to work with City Year's headquarters and its sites in Boston, Tulsa and Seattle.

CDFA hired Olson Analytics to build training materials for one program. Now I support their grants management system across every program.

Working together

Small client list. Some room in the schedule helps.

Before I change anything, I spend time learning how the work actually runs, so I do my best work on projects with some room in the schedule.

If this sounds like your organization, email me. Tell me what's bugging you, even if you're not sure it's the real problem yet.

Email me nate@olsonanalyticsllc.com