Client Story

The Collier Community Foundation (CCF) proudly serves the Collier County area in the state of Florida, supporting positive change in their communities. Collier County is Florida’s 18th most populous county out of 67 counties. It is estimated that Collier County adds nearly 100,000 to the population throughout the county’s “peak season” from December to April. It is a relatively older county and also the second wealthiest county in the state. 

This data indicates some challenges and opportunities as the CCF works to tell its story of the community for partners, grantees, and donors.

The CCF wasn’t new to the concept of utilizing a data dashboard as they developed one with another consulting partner. However, there were limitations with their dashboard and ability to use the data to tell their story. CCF sought a new community indicators dashboard that would be comprehensive of key indicators in their community, more dynamic, user-friendly, and better include the “human piece” of their impact. 

The goal of this community indicators dashboard was to inform their work internally but also accompany them as they make presentations to the community and help inform the work of their grantees and partners.

CCF hired Transform Consulting Group (TCG) to create a community indicators data dashboard. The community data dashboard provides data on key indicators related to their areas of focus: Housing, Health, Environment, Education, and Economic Opportunity.

The Collier County community indicators dashboard is a comprehensive collection of 90 community indicators from over 20 data sources. 

TCG led the development of the community indicators data dashboard including: 

• TCG collaborated with the Foundation to determine dashboard goals, audience, and overall purpose of the dashboard. CCF determined they wanted their dashboard to compile community outcomes for Collier County compared to other counties, the state, and the Nation. 
• TCG collaborated with the CCF’s staff and led a steering committee of key community leaders to inform the development of the dashboard.
• TCG compiled and analyzed data for each of the five areas of focus. These align with key community needs identified in the Collier County Community Needs Assessment. The dashboard aggregates key community data relevant to these focus areas and includes nearly 90 indicators from over 20 sources. 
• Next, TCG began building the dashboard using a visual analytics platform called Tableau. Through a series of “drafts” sent back and forth between the client, we created the final result.
• Once the dashboard was formed, TCG also helped build user capacity so they could use the data. TCG did this through staff training to demonstrate the features and functionality of the dashboard, review the key metrics, and answer questions. 
• TCG created a video on the dashboard home page to provide an overview for anyone using the dashboard. 
• TCG also created a companion slide deck presentation that features data from the dashboard for CCF staff to present to various community organizations, partners, and donors. 
• TCG will manage updates to the community indicators dashboard over the coming years.