No Kill Collorado

How data analysis revealed the true story behind Colorado's shelter capacity bottleneck.

Project: From Siloed Data to Unified Insights: Empowering Animal Welfare

1. Executive Summary

No Kill Colorado (NKC) is dedicated to saving the lives of shelter animals by analyzing and reporting data from across the state. While NKC possessed extensive data, it was trapped in silos and only reviewed annually, making it impossible to see the complete, timely picture. The organization partnered with DataChange Makers to unify and visualize this complex data.

A dedicated team of 27 volunteers contributed over 900 hours of support, executing critical data wrangling and visualization phases. The result was a suite of dashboards that, for the first time, presented a unified view of their data, which NKC's president called "the most amazing data I have seen."

2. The Challenge: "Working With This Data... Very Siloed"

No Kill Colorado's mission hinges on understanding statewide data to identify trends, save lives, and support shelters. However, their primary challenge was data fragmentation. The team was collecting information from various sources, but it remained disconnected.

As Davyd Smith, President of NKC, explained, he had been "working with this data on an annual basis, but very siloed." This fragmented, infrequent analysis meant the team was always looking in the rearview mirror at isolated data points. They lacked the holistic, up-to-date insights needed to make proactive decisions and see the full landscape of animal welfare in the state.

3. The Solution: A Two-Phase Data Overhaul

DataChange Makers assembled a large-scale team of 27 skilled data volunteers to tackle NKC's challenge, including Quincy Njoroge, Aliaksandra Kaliuzhnaya, Sofia Lopez Grande, and Santhosha J. The team dedicated a combined 900+ hours of volunteering to the project, breaking it into two critical phases:

Data Wrangling Phase: Before any insights could be drawn, the volunteers undertook the intensive process of cleaning, structuring, and unifying NKC's disparate and siloed datasets into a single, cohesive source of truth.
Data Visualization Phase: With the data prepared, the team built a series of interactive dashboards and reports. These visualizations brought the newly unified data to life, allowing the NKC team to explore trends, filter by region, and understand their impact in ways they never could before.

4. The Impact and Outcome: "This Was So Important"

The project's outcome was a complete transformation in how No Kill Colorado sees and uses its own data. The new, unified dashboards provided an unprecedented level of clarity and insight, deeply moving the organization's leadership.

The impact was best captured by NKC President Davyd Smith:

“This is the most amazing data I have seen. I’ve been working with this data on an annual basis, but very siloed. This was so important.”

He added, “I did tear up a little bit… You’re all fantastic. That’s all I could say.”

By moving NKC from siloed annual reports to a dynamic and unified data environment, the Data ChangeMakers volunteers provided the organization with a powerful new tool.

This comprehensive view empowers them to make faster, data-driven decisions and more effectively advocate for shelter animals across Colorado.