Data Discovery Systems for Not-for-Profit Organizations

1. Introduction

Contemporary society is an information society characterized by a high level of technological advancement, where information management, the quality of information and the speed of information transfer are major competitive advantage factors in both industry and service sectors (Hiranya,2017). Modern techniques for information gathering, processing, transfer and utilization are in widespread use. In a society like that, information constitutes a significant part of the added value of most goods and services, and information-intensive activities are pursued by households and citizens alike. Information has joined the classical triad of production factors (Zbroińska,2012), and has been recognized as a dominant resource of contemporary organizations and one of the major drivers of the socio-economic development (Makulska,2017; Toffler,1985). Also, recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the idea of civil society and a rise in the socio-economic potential of the third sector and its role in social services and social capital creation (Edwards,2012). The study is aimed at the not-for-profit organizations which belong to the third sector organizations. Third sector organizations function in a specific way – they are established as a result of social initiative, and are motivated not by a desire to make a profit, but a wish to serve people by satisfying their needs (Defourny,2014). In many respects, however, they are not properly adjusted to the current situation. They are in need of organizational, financial and technological changes in order to fulfil their mission and build their potential effectively. Under existing circumstances organizations are forced to efficiently use data and information in resource management. They have to understand/acknowledge that modern information and communications technologies bring internal benefits and contribute to higher efficiency as well as enhanced quality of the services they provide. The aim of the study is to verify a hypothesis that Data Discovery Systems (DD) are one of the modern technologies which help in achieving these goals, and to present the possibility of using DD systems in effective resource management of not-for-profit organizations. The chapter is structured as follows: Section 1 is an introduction to the subject, based on literature review. Section 2 looks at the characteristics of the third sector organizations (especially not-for-profit organizations) and their operating rules. It also presents Data Discovery systems as a new generation of Business Intelligence systems, which support business analytics, and help in building visualizations and dashboards that show insights for the donor, beneficiary and society. They are self-service IT tools which can be used by employees lacking specialized IT knowledge. Section 3 describes the research methodology. Section 4 discusses the findings of the study on the possibilities of using DD systems in resource management of selected not-for-profit organizations. There is also a presentation of a resource management dashboard designed for Volunteer Fire Departments. The analysis of the data on the physical, human and financial resources proved the DD systems to be the tools that can effectively support efficient¹ resource management in this group of organizations. The chapter concludes with discussion of the research findings, implications and limitations of this research, and avenues for further studies.