There are over 15,000 nonprofits in the Houston region delivering education, health, human and social services to hundreds of thousands of people each year. These organizations often collect data to help track output and outcomes but may not have the financial or human resources to fully explore them. To help bridge this gap, United Way of Greater Houston launched the Coffee & Quality initiative in 2019, bringing evaluation experts and nonprofit staff members together to improve data knowledge and utilization.
In January-February 2024 and January-February 2025, United Way partnered with the Kinder Institute to survey area nonprofits about their data needs and practices and the overall effectiveness of Coffee & Quality. This brief summarizes the survey findings, including program successes and areas for continued growth.
Key findings
- Participants generally had positive feelings toward the initiative and felt like they were able to get the information they needed.
- Engagement in the initiative led to improved confidence in and use of data practices.
- Data dictionaries and logic models were the two data practices with the lowest levels of confidence and the highest percentage of respondents being unsure what they were.
- Nonprofits see United Way as a learning hub for data and evaluation in the Greater Houston area, and Coffee & Quality has helped solidify this role.
