Community Users: What Advice Do You Have For Nonprofits?

[lharder_AFG]

The Alteryx For Good team is excited to have launched this Community space, so now all of our Nonprofits can start to connect, share best practices, and hear from each other how they are using Alteryx to elevate their mission. 

AFG Ambassadors, please help us welcome our new nonprofit users to the community. We’d love you all to introduce yourself and share your advice for nonprofits who are beginning their journey so others can learn from you! 

A few questions to start:

How would you encourage new nonprofits to get started in the community?

Looking back, what do you wish your organization had known early on in your Alteryx journey, and what community resources did you find the most helpful?

What are three tips you have for nonprofits when getting started with Alteryx?

If you have not already, please subscribe to the AFG Discussion thread – this will allow you to engage with our nonprofits, students, and educators easily!

I can’t wait to hear from you and watch as you interact with each other!

(@MarqueeCrew @HeatherMHarris @SeanAdams @Deanna @Nezrin @ydmuley @pankajk  let's hear your best advice!)

[Jean-Balteryx]

Hi @lharder_AFG ,

Nice post to encourage nonprofits to engage with the community !

🙂

So, I'm Jean-Baptiste (JB) from Nantes, France and I'm willing to help as much nonprofits as I can using Alteryx !

How would you encourage new nonprofits to get started in the community?

I'd tell them to create a post in the AFG section to introduce themselves, telling what they do, where they work, what impact they make, etc.

Also, another interesting part (in my opinion) would be to describe how they use their data (if they do) and how they use or plan to use Alteryx.

Looking back, what do you wish your organization had known early on in your Alteryx journey, and what community resources did you find the most helpful?

I wish I had been introduced to the Alteryx Community and its resources. I started on my own and it wasn't easy without somebody to guide me but this is what makes it interesting as well.

The resources I found the most useful are :

     - to learn : the interactive lessons and the weekly challenges

     - to get help : the discussions

     - to engage with people : the user groups

     - to discover more : the blogs and use cases

What are three tips you have for nonprofits when getting started with Alteryx?

1. Ask, ask and ask. For help, for anything. We are here to help you make a difference but also to share with you the thrill to solve.

2. Use the AFG Co-Lab. This is for you, we volunteer, so go on.

3. Share your stories and how Alteryx helps you making an impact.

I hope this helps and I look forward to discover nonprofits using Alteryx !

Cheers,

Jean-Baptiste

[MarqueeCrew]

@lharder_AFG 

Thanks for the mention!  I've earned AFG Ambassador twice and struggle to accept that title because I know how much more time is available in the day and how much impact I've witnessed in groups like @ydmuley in India have made.

We all start with a single step.  We move from thought to action hoping to gain inertia and to keep moving the needle.  For me, I want to bring a call to action to others in the community.  Getting more people to see themselves as AFG participants is my goal.  But let me answer the questions posed.

How would you encourage new nonprofits to get started in the community?

 I would encourage all community members to keep #AlteryxForGood as part of their social signature.  Look for ways to invite friends, family and others to get the free access to AFG resources for non-profits that they have an interest in.  Don't worry about explaining AFG.  Get the team at AFG connected to your contact or reach out to an ambassador (like me) to join you in the invitation.

Looking back, what do you wish your organization had known early on in your Alteryx journey, and what community resources did you find the most helpful?

I encourage organizations to know very little about community resources at first.  It is more important to me to understand the nonprofit needs.  If they need help packing lunches, painting a classroom or being present to play with kids, that's where to start.  I set the bar pretty low for the non-profit to consider their analytic needs ahead of their mission statement.

What are three tips you have for nonprofits when getting started with Alteryx?

1.  Be open about your goals and to assume that support is unlimited from AFG.

2.  Be ready to share your data in whatever form it might be in.

3.  Expect to be overwhelmed with the impact that AFG can have (but don't kick yourselves too hard for putting it off).

Cheers,

Mark

[NeilR]

Agree with everything @Jean-Balteryx stated in regards to free resources on community to get you started. I'll just add two thoughts:

1. After you've gotten familiar with what Designer can do via Academy, you may still wonder how to apply those skills to your data. While Co-Lab is a great place to find a volunteer to partner with medium- to long-term, you can more or less immediately book a free appointment with an Alteryx/data expert via the Virtual Solution Center. This expert can help you choose the next best steps to getting insight from your organization's data.
2. If you're not only new to Alteryx but new to working with data, you may not be aware of each and every data asset your organization maintains or has access to. Turns out, most organizations (even across industries) have a lot in common when it comes to their data. So here's the tip: when it comes to asking for help on this community, go beyond "how do I accomplish X with tool Y." First, describe the "business" problem or challenge you're trying to overcome. There's thousands of people in this community that work with data all day every day -- they can help you discover data in your organization that you never knew existed; and they can help you devise novel solutions to your problem that you never would have thought of.