1. Michael P. Johnson
Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts
Boston
and
URBAN.Boston
Code for Boston – Boston Civic Expo, June 1, 2013

2.  Community-based organizations, especially
those serving low-income communities, are
mission-rich but often data- and analytics-
poor
 ‘Big data’ and analytics movements are often
better-suited for large non-profits
 Opportunities for data scientists, policy
analysts and decision scientists:
◦ What data do CBOs say they need to be successful?
◦ How can we help them acquire, analyze and share it?
◦ How can such data improve decision-making?

3.  I am a professor in the Department of Public
Policy and Public Affairs at UMass Boston,
trained in operations research and committed
to decision modeling for housing, community
development and service delivery
 URBAN.Boston is a local ‘node’ of a national
initiative, from MIT’s CoLab, to foster
research-community collaborations for
innovative policy solutions and social justice

4.  What data do resource-constrained CBOs in
underserved communities need to achieve
their goals?
◦ Qualitative/subjective vs. quantitative/objective
◦ Shareable, searchable, accessible
◦ Responsive to local needs, values, resources
 How can CBOs make informed decisions to
provide key services and improve
communities?
◦ Descriptive analytics
◦ Predictive analytics
◦ Prescriptive analytics

5.  Boston Indicators Project,
http://www.bostonindicators.org/
 Metro Boston Data Common,
http://metrobostondatacommon.org/
 Boston Research Map project,
http://worldmap.harvard.edu/boston/
 Mel King Institute for Community Building,
http://www.melkinginstitute.org/
 Johnson (Ed) 2011, Community-Based Operations
Research: Decision Modeling for Local Impact and
Diverse Populations (Springer)
 Boland, S. 2012. “Big Data for Little Nonprofits”,
Nonprofit Quarterly

6.  Engage community members and local
organizations at URBAN.Boston-sponsored
events to learn about values, priorities, needs
◦ How do problems to be solved motivate data
necessary requirements?
◦ How can appropriate data yield information,
insights and decision opportunities?
 Collaborate with professionals and students
to develop ‘information and decision aids’
◦ Policies, procedures, rules-of-thumb
◦ Databases and applications

7.  Community-based organization(s) will
articulate data needs, and use any local
resources, existing or new, to meet them
 Community-oriented solutions will be
affordable, flexible, technologically-
accessible, multi-platform, inter-disciplinary
 CBOs will be empowered to advocate, lead,
serve and collaborate more effectively
 Residents representing the diversity of Boston
will be central to this process

8.  Michael:
◦ Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs,
University of Massachusetts Boston
◦ michael.johnson@umb.edu
◦ http://works.bepress.com/michael_johnson/
 URBAN.Boston
◦ LinkedIn: URBAN.Boston
◦ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanBoston
◦ Mark Warren: mark.warren@umb.edu

9. And for your
information…