Does your association have a data governance policy? In our data-driven world, governance is crucial in maintaining the integrity, accuracy, and security of your organization’s data. But according to the latest Momentive Software research, only 36% of association professionals value improving governance.
These results are concerning, especially in an era where decisions are increasingly driven by data. For associations, investing in the state of your member data isn’t just a best practice, it’s essential. Despite the growing emphasis on analytics, many association professionals admit they lack confidence in the quality and reliability of their data.
If your organization is struggling with similar challenges, you’re not alone. However, there’s a solution. Continue reading to learn how you can adopt your own data governance policy and become a more data-driven organization.
What is data governance?
A set of rules, metrics, or policies established by an organization to bring clarity and ease of use to data practices is a data governance policy. Having well-governed analytics also helps elevate companywide strategy and maximize ROI. A well-executed data governance policy will often include a steering committee or leadership board to determine the data standards and discuss the implementation process and enforcement procedures.
However, Forbes found 42% of data and analytics leaders do not measure or assess their data. Of the respondents who do measure their data, their governance activity focused solely on compliance-centered goals.
Why does your association need a data governance policy?
Without proper care for your data, your system can fall prey to data inconsistencies, causing major problems across your organization. Data could be listed differently in member, education, or accounting systems presenting integration issues and data integrity damage to your records. When you create a data governance policy, your organization can break down these data silos and allow data to be properly utilized.
Give your association a competitive edge by choosing to emphasize data governance and creating a like-minded policy. Leveraging data helps your association gain crucial member insights about learning content and event attendance, boosting member engagement across all avenues.
How can your association become driven by data governance?
You’ll first need to strategize your organization’s policy. When creating a data governance policy, your association should seek to define a collection of best practices to promote data security.
Most policies will include the following aspects:
- Purpose: You’ll want to start your data governance policy with a statement outlining its purpose, noting how it supports your association’s mission and goals.
- Scope: Within the scope, describe how your policy will affect various stakeholders like members, staff, and more.
- Rules: This section features the main guidance on how your association will regulate your data. Consider including rules about data-specific subjects like access and availability, usage, security, quality and integrity, and usability and integration.
- Stakeholder roles and responsibilities: You’ll need to determine the roles and responsibilities of your data owners, users, and stewards. Additionally, consider who will make up your data governance body if you choose to create a committee or leadership board.
- Key definitions: Include a glossary of important terms used in your policy, like data, data user, access, metadata, and custodian.
- Review process: For best practices purposes, you might consider including a section that covers how your data governance policy is established, reviewed, and updated.
- Additional resources: This section serves as a place for additional documentation or referenced regulations.
As you begin the process of creating your policy, consider asking the following questions to further refine the focus of data governance at your association:
- What is the ultimate purpose of your data?
- What is the timeframe for how long you keep data? How often should we be cleaning our data?
- How can this data help us better target members with preferred member benefits?
- How can we be more transparent about data usage in our association with our members, staff, and other key stakeholders?
- What ongoing education or training do we need to adopt to become a data-driven organization?
Once you’ve arrived at a data governance policy, consider publishing it across your communication platforms to signal to members and industry stakeholders your data values. Prioritizing data governance can help you build trust in your organization, attracting new members while also boosting member engagement and retention.
Why your organization needs to reinvest in the state of its member data
Reporting on the state of member data
If in the past your organization has struggled to manage your data, know you’re not alone. Other associations share the sentiment too. Momentive Software research reports that 55% of association pros say investing in business intelligence and analytics is a top priority. However, only 37% of association professionals trust their member data enough to use it routinely and tap it for crucial decisions.
Another noteworthy trend is only a quarter of professionals say they can easily join member data from various resources to create a unified member report. While this number is up from 18% in 2019, data silos remain a pain point for many associations when attempting to provide the best member experience.
Becoming informed about the overall state of how associations use their member data alerts you to whether your organization should also act.
How to get informed about the state of your member data
The next step is learning more about your member data. Gauge how your association measures up by surveying your staff to identify key trends in your organization. Get the conversation started by asking the following questions:
- Does your staff feel confident with the current state of your data?
- Are they currently experiencing any data silos across the organization?
- Does your staff require any additional training to better manage member analytics?
Take your information-gathering process a step further by surveying members or forming a focus group. Focus groups offer great value because they encourage in-depth conversation about your organization. With the assistance of a well-skilled mediator, you’ll receive vital feedback.
Once you receive any feedback from staff or members, be sure to host an organization-wide meeting to share your results. Thank your staff and members for their time and explain how you plan to address their thoughts by setting goals to improve your organizational data.
How to set goals to improve your member data
After learning where your association stands with its member data, you’ll be ready to set goals to better organize your practices. Setting a vision, obtainable goals, and KPIs for your data is a lengthy process. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t see progress overnight, or even in the next quarter. But do know that the payoff is worth the effort.
Setting data-driven goals is crucial for the success of your organization. If you don’t cast a vision, your association won’t know what metrics to include in reporting. Establishing goals is the necessary first step to building healthy data. Consider adopting data literacy and training goals to empower all staff to be responsible for analytics integrity.
Take the process a step further by adopting a data governance policy at your association. Data governance is a set of rules, metrics, or policies your organization establishes to ensure you have well-run analytics. When your association has solid policies, you’ll have a better foothold to establish data goals and leverage analytics to gain crucial member insights.
Learn more about the importance of data governance at your association
In today’s data-driven environment, associations can no longer overlook the importance of data governance. When you establish a strong data governance policy, you can make informed decisions, build member trust, and drive long-term growth.
