This toolkit walks you through Jess Steele’s full data infrastructure process — from the first conversation about what you need to know, all the way to a phased roadmap for fixing what isn’t working. Every resource includes a real, anonymized example so you can see what it looks like in practice, not just in theory.
From the Helia Library — based on our Coffee Chat with Jess Steele of Insight by Design. Read the full article, Before the Dashboard: Why the foundation comes before the fancy stuff.
What’s in here
- Data Strategy Conversation Guide — The questions to ask before you touch a single system
- Data Systems Inventory — Map everything you have, official and unofficial
- Data Ownership Map — Name who’s accountable for what
- Data Quality Assessment — See what you can actually trust
- Gap Analysis & Roadmap — Figure out what to fix first, and in what order
And note, this is a LOT!!!
- Not sure where to start? Take the Data Maturity Assessment from data.org first. It asks nuanced questions about your current systems and gives you a score — a great way to see where you’re actually doing well before diving in.
- If that’s still too much..
- If you have 20 minutes, start with the Systems Inventory.
- If you’re about to pitch a new system/CRM/tool to your board, start with the Gap Analysis.
If You Want Help
Jess Steele and her team at Insight by Design work with organizations at every stage of this process — from the initial data strategy conversation all the way through implementation and capacity building.
They’re a good fit if:
- You have data everywhere and no clear picture of what you actually have
- You’re building toward something — a new program, a funder relationship, an AI pilot — and need the infrastructure to support it
- You’ve been scrappy for a long time and are ready to invest in something more sustainable
Connect with Jess!
Not sure Jess‘s the right fit? Talk to Helia directly!
About Jess
Jess Steele started her career as a high school counselor, watching programs come and go and wondering which ones were actually working. That question sent her into more than a decade of work at the intersection of data, evaluation, and systems — in education, child welfare, and behavioral health — always asking the same thing: how do we actually know if this is helping?
Along the way, she kept running into the same problem: evaluation and analysis was only as good as the infrastructure underneath it. So she built Insight by Design to help nonprofits and mission-driven organizations improve their data infrastructure — starting with the right questions, building the foundation that makes metrics trustworthy, and offering hands-on implementation and capacity building when organizations need it.
When she’s not building data systems, you’ll find her outside with her daughters Simone and Nadine, always with a good playlist.
