How becoming data-driven is helping Barnardo’s achieve their strategic goal of creating better outcomes for more children

Find out how the UK’s largest children’s charity is using data to better understand the needs of children, young people and families which it supports.

Barnardo’s, the UK’s largest children’s charity, does amazing work to help and support children, young people and families through a variety of challenging circumstances.

As part of their overarching strategy to ensure children have the best possible start in life, Barnardo’s has recognised the need to develop and evolve its approach to digital tools and data.

The three key pillars of Barnardo's focus on becoming data driven are:

  • To better understand the needs and experiences of the children and families they support through improved data collection and analysis
  • Continuous innovation to develop new approaches to the services they provide due to changing needs of the people who benefit from them
  • To reduce the administrative burden on their frontline team so they can focus on frontline work
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The first step: helping Barnardo’s develop a data culture

Barnardo’s knows that the process to becoming data driven was a transformational one and couldn’t be taken lightly. In early 2022, Barnardo's approached Amplifi to help build a data strategy that they could execute over time.

During a series of workshops over a six-week period, Amplifi were able to interview key stakeholders from across the charity and understand the challenges and opportunities that exist when it comes to data at Barnardo’s. What followed was documenting over 100 valuable findings and over 20 strategic recommendations that would help Barnardo’s achieve their objectives.

“Because of the complexity of requests and using different systems, getting real value from our data was becoming an overwhelming task” said Remi Martins-Tonks, Head of Data & Insight at Barnardo's. “With Amplifi’s support we have been able to identify the foundational steps we need to take to make sure we’re using our data to its full potential.”

What’s next on Barnardo's journey with data?

The foundation of Barnardo’s transition to becoming truly data driven is investing in their people and the role they play in embracing the value of data. That’s why Barnardo’s next step is to undertake a business change programme across their entire organisation to ensure their people know and understand the value of data.

After that, they can move on to address other key areas Amplifi identified such as data governance, data ownership and system architecture.

We’re excited and proud to be part of that journey with Barnardo’s as they continue to help and support children, young people and families throughout the UK.

Download Guide: Data for Good

Our guide, Data for Good: A guide to enhancing your organisation’s social impact with data, will help you understand your charity's relationship with data. Read it now to discover the next steps you need to take to start delivering more good to your community with data.


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