Feeding America is a great organization that uses a nation-wide network of food banks that work together to provide food to millions. It acquires it's donations from various organizations such as grocery manufacturers, retailers, shippers, packers, growers, and government agencies.
Recently, Feeding America has decided to undergo a transformation in their data processing, so that they may acquire higher quality data. The higher quality data will then be used to accomplish their overall mission, which is to end hunger in the United States.
So here's the problem. Well, it's not so much a problem as it is just some food for thought (no pun intended). Since Feeding America is essentially converting to higher quality information systems and data management, there are some things that need to be considered. Firstly, higher quality data and it's systems will undoubtedly have a higher cost, which may be tough for an organization that runs on donations, but it certainly isn't impossible. The other problem they are going to face is getting their network's members to start using this technology. I imagine that they will have to spend a lot of time and money trying to educate their various network members on the new technology and how it will be beneficial to start using it. The article even mentions that a lot of volunteers working for Feeding America have trouble just using technology like Microsoft Excel.
Matter of fact, Feeding America intends on using a Data Management consulting firm by the name of Data Blueprint. This firm will help with the technological conversion, but I personally think that Feeding America is about to climb a huge mountain and will need internal, long term technology personnel to help them with this new component to their business model. By the way it sounds, they might also need field managers to help ensure that their network is properly educated and equipped with the software that they are going to need to use in the years to come. From a somewhat ignorant outsider's perspective, I think that they should use Data Blueprint for whatever they need in the short term to kickoff their conversion, then hire internal data management personnel, and also hire field managers/educators to ensure that their network is up to speed with everything going on. If they could do that, I think that they will be in a very good position for longterm success.
Nonetheless, this sounds like Feeding America is realizing how important high quality data tracking is in today's economy, no matter the type of business, and it is exciting to hear that they are moving forward with incorporating high quality data tracking and management into their business. I hope that they find success in this and that, by using data, they are able to find even more success in their ultimate goal, which is to end hunger in America. It is certainly nice to think that data can be used to directly reduce hunger. I wish them the best of luck with this!
Source:
https://www.dataversity.net/case-study-feeding-america-takes-project-standardize-data-improve-data-quality/
Feeding America is an organization whose main goal is to end hunger in this country. They were founded decades ago, and they continue to improve their company in finding new ways to accomplish their goal. They seem like they want to improve their business by using data management and finding skilled workers in this field. This can be expensive for a company that is known for running from the donations they receive. Another complicated task is the research they want to conduct. Ideally, an ongoing database system will track places that are known to have people starving, from the stats and trends collected. With a system like this, it would be easier for the company to find the right people and places that are in hunger. It has stated in the article that the food banks have reached out to their feeding program partners to collect data points of their current and future work. As a reader, I am surprised to see that this is just starting now. We are in a world of technology, and data plays a huge role in our everyday lives whether you know it or you don’t. Creating a data management system as explained here is beneficial for almost all companies, Feeding America would benefit greatly from a system like so. Also explained in the article, getting this program and data collection started will be the most difficult part. I do not think finding the right people to make this program will be difficult, but the data collection will be. Statisticians base their theories and projections from past data and trends. With Feeding America having very little information, it will be difficult to start such a database like they wish to. They will need years and years of data collection and analyzation to create such a worthwhile program.
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