A Better Chicago
Unified cloud data drives impact for Chicago’s youth success.
The Challenge
A Better Chicago (ABC), a nonprofit venture philanthropy fund focused on educational equity for youth across the Chicago region, needed a unified, scalable data environment to consolidate diverse datasets—from grantee performance and population impact to operational metrics—and transform them into actionable insights. Existing workflows relied heavily on Excel-based data management and manual aggregation, making reporting complex, time-consuming, and difficult to scale across multiple initiatives such as the Youth Opportunity Dashboard.
Key Highlights
Avaap partnered with ABC to design, build, and operationalize a modern cloud data platform that streamlined data ingestion, governance, and reporting for internal stakeholders and public audiences.
- Data Platform Architecture: Implemented a Snowflake data warehouse integrating Salesforce, public data sources, and program tracking systems; visualized current and future-state process models; designed dimensional modeling schema for historical trend analysis; established data quality monitoring, role-based access controls, and automated pipeline orchestration; leveraged Alteryx for ETL automation and workflow transparency.
- Analytics Enablement: Guided adoption of Microsoft Fabric; developed the Youth Opportunity Dashboard in Power BI with interactive insights; embedded secure reporting on ABC’s website; built additional dashboards for internal operations, financial health, and organizational “Vitals” reporting.
- Managed Services and Continuous Improvement: Transitioned to a managed service model for ongoing dashboard refreshes, enhancements, and quality assurance; enabled timely data refreshes and user experience updates; delivered hands-on knowledge transfer to empower ABC’s analysts.
- Unified Data Platform: Consolidated dozens of data sources into a single Snowflake-based repository powering multiple reporting streams.
- Automation & Efficiency: Reduced manual data preparation from weeks to hours through automated Alteryx workflows.
- Transparency & Impact: Public-facing Youth Opportunity Dashboard increased visibility into grantee outcomes and community progress.
- Scalable Foundation: Established a flexible architecture to support future analytics initiatives, including Vitals Tracker and other social impact programs.
- Sustained Partnership: Ongoing managed services ensure platform reliability and continued innovation aligned with ABC’s mission.
Through a multi-phase engagement encompassing data architecture, engineering, visualization, and managed services, Avaap enabled A Better Chicago to transform its data into a strategic asset—empowering evidence-based decision-making, transparency for stakeholders, and scalable impact for Chicago’s youth.
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