Vermont Insights Business Plan 2017

Transcription

1 Building Bright Futures 600 Blair Park, Suite 306, Williston, VT buildingbrightfutures.org Vermont Insights Business Plan 2017 Building Bright Futures statewide network: Addison Building Bright Futures, Bennington Building Bright Futures, Caledonia and Southern Essex Building Bright Futures, Central Vermont Building Bright Futures, Chittenden Building Bright Futures, Franklin Grand Isle Building Bright Futures, Lamoille Valley Building Bright Futures, Northern Windsor and Orange Building Bright Futures, Orleans and Northern Essex Building Bright Futures, Rutland Building Bright Futures, Southeast Vermont Building Bright Futures and Springfield Area Building Bright Futures

2 Table of Contents 1.0 Executive Summary (to be added) 2.0 Overview of the Business Concept page Who We Are and What We Do Building Bright Futures Vermont Insights Product Description Why Vermont Insights? 2.2 Value of Vermont Insights 3. 0 Vermont Insights Market page Data Seekers/Consumers Current Market and Size Potential Market and Size 3.2 Data Producers/Suppliers Current Market and Size Potential Market and Size 3.3 Organizations Seeking Public Data-Reporting Platform/Infrastructure Current Market and Size Potential Market and Size 4.0 Financial Plan page Financial model and pricing strategy 4.2 Projected financials: FY18, FY19, FY Implementation Plan page Goals, strategies and tactics 5.2 Setting priorities 5.3 Risk management 5.4 Key performance metrics Appendices (to be added) A. Organizational Summary: Personnel and Operations B. Marketing Analysis and Plan

3 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (To be added) 2.0 OVERVIEW 2.1 Who We Are and What We Do Building Bright Futures Building Bright Futures is a non-profit organization charged by Vermont s legislature to serve as the state s early childhood advisory council. Through its network of 12 regional councils it engages community members and partner organizations to ensure access, quality, and affordability of early care, health, and education of young children and their families at the local level with effective policy at the state level. Building Bright Futures has three programs that support its mission: Systems and Policy, Community Regional Council Network, and Data - Vermont Insights Vermont Insights Product Description Launched in April 2016, Vermont Insights is a new product, developed by Building Bright Futures in partnership with ctechnica, a Vermont software development company, with funding from the federal Early Learning Challenge grant program. It is an online resource, designed to share data on early childhood, families, and communities from trusted data sources in an easy-to-understand format using its free-to-the public platform. Not only does Vermont Insights support Building Bright Futures to meet its legislative responsibility to establish a means for regularly collecting, analyzing, and reporting on key indicators of success in the lives of young children and their families -- and from this data, to develop a strategic plan to address key needs and ongoing issues directed toward improving outcomes -- it provides a solution to other agencies and organizations who are looking for a similar product to support their work Why Vermont Insights? Building Bright Futures-Vermont Insights is the first in Vermont, go-to data hub for Vermont specific child, family, and community data. It provides:

4 1. Well-designed and comprehensive one-stop data, free-to-the public, shopping experience for all data seekers, 2. Economical and beneficial distribution platform for data producers, and a 3. Simple and flexible alternative platform solution for organizations looking for a public data-reporting infrastructure. Access and use of the data made available through Vermont Insights will assist policy makers, organizations, and communities to ensure all families and young children have access to a continuum of comprehensive, high quality early childhood programs and services that meet established standards, promote school readiness, and address the needs of the child and family. 2.2 Value of Vermont Insights BBF-Vermont Insights is the only organization that brings together Vermont specific early childhood, cross-sector and cross-agency data at state and sub-geographies in one publicly accessible online site. BBF-Vermont Insights supports data consumers find current, relevant, accurate and comprehensive data through a one-stop data, free to the public, shopping experience that is more efficient than searching many data sources. BBF-Vermont Insights provides a platform for data producers to present their data and information to a broader audience in a professional, accurate, and collaborative manner that is more beneficial and efficient to the organization than trying to distribute the information alone. BBF-Vermont Insights offers organizations an alternative solution to creating their own public data-reporting infrastructure, resulting in more efficiency as well as visibility and credibility to their organization. 3.0 VERMONT INSIGHTS MARKET Vermont Insights has three segmented markets within Vermont: data seekers/consumers, data producers/suppliers, and organizations seeking a public data-reporting infrastructure/platform. A number of Vermont Insights target audience fall into more than one of the market segments. Market Segment s Data Seekers/ Consumers Data Producers/ Suppliers Organizations seeking public data-reporting platform/ infrastructure

5 3.1 Data Seekers/Consumers Current Market and Size The current estimated data consumer customer base is 1,361 from 82 Vermont municipalities. Nine months from its launch in April 11, 2016, an estimated 1,361 Vermont data consumers, as presented in Table 1, used Vermont Insights to access its available data in 2,431 sessions in total. Figure 1: Vermont Insights Users from Vermont and the United States (Google Analytics) The bounce rate, the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page, is low for Vermont users, 41%. This gives us a good indication that users are exploring the site rather than visiting a page and then leaving after one click (bounce out.) The information on users, sessions, page views, and more in Table 1 provides a high-level view of product, Vermont Insights, use. More precise information on user demographics, behaviors, and interest will be needed so that Building Bright Futures can: Find and engage more customers like them, and Align BBF s marketing, customer service, product management and revenue generation to leverage BBF s effectiveness Potential Market and Size BBF-VI s potential market size is estimated to be over 10,000 data seekers/consumers. These include: elected officials/public policymakers, government agencies, early childhood individuals and organizations, and families with young children and the communities where they live. See Figure 2 for further detail

6 Figure 2: Building Bright Futures-Vermont Insights Data Seeker/Consumer Market and Size BBF State Advisory Council (22), Committee (50), and Regional Councils (355) Elected ofgicals - public policymakers : state and federal (192) Government agencies: agency administration and teams (120) and State of VT Councils and Commissions (11) Early childhood practitioners, administrators/managers, researchers, philanthropists, advocates, and organizations: 6,000 + and state and local organizations, and coalitions (4) Families and communities with young children live: 15,000 families and 246 organized cities and towns A secondary data consumers target audience come from the social, environmental or economic sectors that do not serve young children and families directly but have overlapping data needs such as housing and employment that affect the well-being of all people and places. These include Regional Planning Commissions, VT Housing Financing Authority, and VT Department of Labor. 3.2 Data Producers/Suppliers Current Market and Size The current data producer/supplier customers are the following 9 key data producers who supply early childhood, family, and community data to Vermont Insights: Child Development Division, Department for Children and Families, Agency of Human Services Family Services Division, Department for Children and Families, Agency of Human Services Department of Health, Agency of Human Services Agency of Education Vermont Head Start Association Let s Grow Kids Gross National Happiness USA U.S. Census Bureau Vermont State Data Center, Center for Rural Studies, University of Vermont Potential Market and Size Efforts are underway to expand upon the data from these key data producers as well as seek out new suppliers. These include:

7 Agency of Education, Early Learning Challenge Grant, Project 22 (Early Childhood and State Longitudinal Data System) Agency of Human Services, Early Learning Challenge Grant Project #19 (Children s Integrated Services) Department of Health Department of VT Health Access, Blueprint for Health Department for Children and Families o Child Development Division o Family Services Division Department for Vermont Health Access, Blueprint for Health US Census Bureau Substance Abuse and Mental Health Agency National Survey of Children s Health 3.3 Organizations Seeking a Public Data-Reporting Platform/Infrastructure Current Market and Size There are 3 current customers, organizations using the Vermont Insights platform/infrastructure to meet their data-reporting infrastructure needs: Building Bright Futures, VT State Data Center, Center for Rural Studies, University of Vermont Potential Market and Size The goal of BBF-Vermont Insights is to work collaboratively with organizations that share a similar mission to promote data access and use and have a data-reporting infrastructure need. Building Bright Futures wants to complement similar initiatives and provide opportunities to leverage and use resources wisely. Potential customers may include the following organizations: Vermont state agencies and organizations with missions similar to Building Bright Futures. These include: 1. Agency of Human Services, Results Scorecard 2. Agency of Education, Interactive Report Viewer 3. Department of Health, Maps and Trends and Performance Measures 5. Vermont Department of Health Access, Health Service Area Profiles 6. Voices for Vermont Children, Kids Count Vermont agencies and organizations that have some similar data interests such as: 1. Chittenden Regional Planning Commission, ECOS Scorecard 2. Rutland s Project Vision, Open Police Data. 3. Agency of Commerce and Community Development, VT Center for Geographic Information 4. VT Housing Finance Agency, Vermont Housing Data Outside of Vermont Markets: Exploration of early childhood sector markets in other states or national agencies and organizations may be of interest in the future

8 There is a growing national market for platforms such as Vermont Insights that make data available to anyone via the Internet in an easy to access and at no cost to the individual. The following are some examples of organizations that provide this type of product and service: Two notable state examples are California s Lucille Packard Foundation for Children s Health Kids Data ( and New York s New York State Kids Wellness Indicator Clearinghouse ( At the national level Annie E. Casey Foundation ( has led the way over the last several decades, however, it does not include sub-state data. A new initiative, the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, at Brandeis University provides important state and county data for a set of diversity data indicators. The most robust site that addresses all sectors (education, social and environment) and age groups using a geographic information system framework, tapping into many federal public data sources, is Community Commons (communitycommons.org) 4.0 FINANCIAL PLAN 4.1 Financial Model and Pricing Strategy The Vermont Insights financial model will be based upon value-model pricing strategy and will also include these additional revenue-generating strategies: sponsorships, donor investments, and Foundation and grant funding. The value-model pricing strategy fits with the overall business model objective to provide a platform for data seekers and producers to access and represent early childhood data. Vermont Insights pricing strategy will prioritize product quality through ease of access and usability for both data users and producers. Vermont Insights pricing strategy will be based on early childhood data producers as the primary customer/investor. The value-model demand assumption is that early childhood data producers wish to have their data sets made publically available in a user friendly format. Vermont Insights investors may include: i) Vermont State & Government Departments ii) Private early childhood organizations iii) Non-profit charitable organizations that focus on children, family & community iv) Philanthropic organizations v) Other Pricing will also take into account the systems and fiscal environment in which Vermont Insights operates. Given the mission and vision of the umbrella organization, Building Bright Futures, Vermont Insights serves to improve the early childhood data system by making important community data available to the public. The challenging and shifting fiscal environment of early childhood system will also be considered. Pricing needs to be set high enough to provide a quality product and reasonable enough for public and private partners to be able to afford. A tiered pricing model will be utilized as outlined in the Figure

9 Figure 3: Tiered Pricing Strategy 1 FEATURES Partner Contributor (Tier 1) PLANS Professional (Tier 2) Enterprise (Tier 3) Price $500 - $1,000 Annually $2,500 - $5,000 Annually $5,000 - $20,000 Annually $20,000 - $50,000 Annually Organizational website presence Customized reports Listed as a data partner Included in search function simple data set(s) 1-2 filters 3 basic visuals basic narratives Included in search function 1-2 complex data sets filters 3 basic visuals basic narratives Included in search function Featured homepage presence 1-2 complex data sets with data prep assistance 4-6 filters 1-2 tailored visuals tailored narratives Integrated marketing & communication support -- 1 The needs of the data producer customer will be carefully assessed with particular attention to IT related costs before a tier and price within the tier is set. 2 The complexity of a data set and related cost within the professional and enterprise price plan is determined by a number of factors including: 1. data type (e.g., raw, aggregated, derived), 2. data digital format and structure; 3. number and relationships between variables and attributes, 4. analysis and manipulation required, 5. data documentation, and 6. data sensitivity and security

10 Plan Plus Services Data development and technical assistance Individualized training Application Program Interface (API) Data Collection/Profile Often times organizations are looking for technical assistance to better understand what child, family, and community data is available (and where are the gaps) to help answer important early childhood questions. Vermont Insights team can provide technical assistance. Training will help organizations reap the benefit of their investment. This includes virtual and in-person individualized training of the organization s customized reports and other features and reports within Vermont Insights. API (Application Program Interface) is a digital strategy that allows and manages the interaction between two online connected services. For example, BBF-Vermont Insights uses the Census Bureau API to pull annual 5-year America Community Survey data into vermontinsights.org. The Vermont Insights team can explore with organizations what and how to access API data through VI as well as pushing data from vermontinisghts.org to the organization s scorecards and dashboards. A new feature under development is the ability to create a customized collection of individual reports. 4.2 Projected Financials: FY18, FY19, FY20 In the section that follows, Vermont Insights financial planning documents are presented. Financial projections indicate that Vermont Insight s will realize a positive cash flow through the end of FY2017. The desire is for additional revenue sources be established and for cash flow to remain stable and steadily grow. It should be noted that Vermont Insights runs on a fiscal year cycle, from July 1 - June 30. The following financial documents include: 1. Current annual base operating budget (Table 1) a. It should be noted that in the current annual base operating budget for Vermont Insights 45% of revenue is through Race to the Top Grant Funds 2. Current Operating Budget FY17 and Proposed Operating Budget (Table 2) 3. Projected Financials/Scenarios FY18, FY19, FY20 (Table 3) a. FY18 assumes: i. $80K in Race to the Top grant funds, ii. $30K in other Foundation and grant funding, iii. $20K in sponsorships and donor investments, and iv. Public/Private Investors: Tier 1 Investors, Tier 2 Investors b. FY19 assumes: i. $0 in Race to the Top grant funds, ii. $40K in other Foundation and grant funding, iii. $30K in sponsorships and donor investments, and iv. Public/Private Investors: Tier 1 Investors, Tier 2 Investors, and 3. 1 Tier 3 Investor

11 c. FY20 assumes: i. No Race to the Top Funds ii. $40K in other Foundation and grant funding, iii. $30K in sponsorships and donor investments, and iv. Public/private investors: Tier 1 Investors, 2. 4 Tier 2 Investors, and 3. 1 Tier 3 Investor Table 1. Vermont Insights Current Base Operating Budget FY17 Current Operational Budget FY17 Revenue Race to the Top TA $81, RTT Carryforward $8, Center for Rural Studies $20, Turrell Fund Grant $10, Project 2 Funds $12, Total Revenue $131, Expenses Senior Consulting Director $50, Director (1 FTE) Data Analyst (.8FTE) $56, Technical Contract $14, Salaries Communications/Marketing Consultation Seminars & Workshops Benefit Allocation $5, Taxes $4, Postage Telephone Copier Advertising Hospitality Staff Travel Office Supplies Subscriptions Rent /Overhead Website Total Expenses $130, Total Revenue $131, Net $

12 Table 2. Current Operating & Proposed Expenses Only Revenue Current Operational Budget FY17 Race to the Top TA $81, RTT Carryforward $8, Center for Rural Studies $20, Turrell Grant $10, Project 2 Funds $12, Expenses Total Revenue $131, Senior Consulting Director $50, Proposed Operational Budget FY18 Director (1 FTE) $65, Data Analyst (.8FTE) $56, $56, Technical Contract $14, $36, Salaries $157, Communications/Marketing $1, Consultation $5, Seminars & Workshops $2, Benefit Allocation $5, $12, Taxes $4, $8, Postage $ Telephone $ Copier $ Advertising Hospitality $ Staff Travel $ Office Supplies $ Subscriptions $1, Rent /Overhead Website $14, Total Expenses $130, $204, Total Revenue $131, Net $

13 Table 3. Projected Financials FY18, FY19, FY20 FY18 July 1st, June 30th, 2018 FY19 July 1st, June 30th, 2018 FY20 July 1st, June 30th, 2018 Revenue Grant Revenue Race to the Top $80, Foundation and Grant Funding $30, $40, $40, Sponsorships and Donor Investments $20, $30, $30, Investors Tier 1 ($5,000) $15, $20, $20, Tier 2 ($20,000) $60, $75, $80, Tier 3 ($50,000) $50, $50, Total Revenue $205, $215, $220, Expenses Director (1 FTE) $65, $65, $65, Data Analyst (.8FTE) $56, $56, $56, Total Salary $121, $121, $121, Communications/Marketing $1, $1, $1, Consultation $5, $5, $5, Seminars & Workshops $2, $2, $2, Benefit Allocation $12, $12, $12, Taxes $8, $8, $8, Postage $ $ $ Telephone $ $ $ Copier $ $ $ Advertising Hospitality $ $ $ Staff Travel $ $ $ Office Supplies $ $ $ Subscriptions $1, $1, $1, Rent /Overhead Website $14, $14, $14, Technical Contract $36, $46, $46, Total Expenses $204, $214, $214, Total Revenue $205, $215, $220, Net $ $ $5,

14 5.0 IMPLEMENTATION PLAN 5.1 Goals, Strategies, and Tactics Goals 1. Grow and strengthen the content, functionality, and design of Vermont Insights 2. Build a strong Vermont Insights customer base, both data consumers and data suppliers 3. Create a sustainable financial model and partnerships over the next three years Strategy Summary To ensure sustainability, Building Bright Futures will implement a five-pronged, implementation plan targeting the following areas: 1. Product maintenance, growth, and development 2. Financial 3. Data producers-suppliers 4. Marketing and customer service 5. Strategic partners Strategies and Tactics for FY 2017 and FY 2018 Focus Areas Strategies Tactics Product maintenance, growth, and development Financial Continue to build reports, design product, and control quality at the BBF Williston office using product software development and maintenance through ctechnica LLC, a Vermont small business based in Waterbury with a strong commitment to BBF-Vermont Insights. Implement a sustainable financial model that offers value to financial partners. Develop and implement a prioritized content, function, and design list with costs to maintain, grow, and develop Vermont Insights based on target customer needs. Attract new financial partnerships focused on early childhood public and private organizations, data producers, as the primary customers of the tiered pricing plan. Data producers-suppliers Build business relationships with data steward organizations that can use the VI platform and operations to easily distribute their data to their audiences. Plan and apply for Foundation and grant funding in 2017 and Create agreements and application programming interfaces, at an affordable cost, with trusted data suppliers, that will build the VI inventory of useful

15 Focus Areas Strategies Tactics data and tools for their shared audiences. Marketing and customer service Strategic partners 5.2 Setting Priorities Use the BBF-Vermont Insights brand, multiple communication channels, and customer service to build a solid customer base. Use technology, financial, marketing, and public policy experts as BBF strategic partners to grow, build, and sustain Vermont Insights. Update and implement BBF-VI s marketing plan developed in FY2016. Develop and implement a customer service plan. Form an advisory group to the BBF Executive Director and the SAC Executive Committee with representatives from technology, financial, marketing and public policy. In February 2016, the BBF leadership team agreed upon the following set of criteria for setting priorities that support BBF-VI s goal to make data easily available and used (increase data access, increase data use and reduce data gaps). Mission and Scope Customers Support & Revenue Generation 1. Is it BBF mission driven, directed and supported? 2. Is it doable (scope and capacity)? 3. Will it support the Early Learning Challenge Project #20 Vermont Insights deliverables? 1. Will it attract users? Will it increase our user base in a way that VI is the go-to data source for VT's children, families and the communities where they live? 2. Will it strengthen the relationships and partnerships with data owners? 1. Will it deepen and broaden BBF s base of champions? 2. Will it position BBF in the best possible way to generate revenue? 5.3 Risk Management Identifying, analyzing and responding to potential risks proactively rather than reactively is critical to the success of any business. These can include risks related to financial, market, management, technology, and product. The following are the identified major risks and corresponding mitigation response. Potential Risks 1. Financial: Transition from fully funded from the Early Learning Challenge federal grant to sustainable funding by FY19. Mitigation Response The BBF FY17 budget was successfully developed and approved by the BBF Board with

16 Potential Risks 2. Market: Data supply isn t able to meet the data demand. Vermont Insights is a data distribution system and its success is dependent on the quality and quantity of its data content. Its key data suppliers are government agencies at the national and state level. 3. Early Childhood Landscape: Many early childhood initiatives are underway in Vermont with new federal funding. Key early childhood organizational and leadership stakeholder groups are pushed to maximize their resources such as staff with much work to be done. 4. Technology: The cost of technology and availability of software development and architecture expertise. Technology is the cornerstone to doing BBF-VI business. In addition to ongoing maintenance, data platforms like Vermont Insights must continue to create new content, functionality and track performance so as to keep its customers engaged and coming back. Mitigation Response the Vermont Insights program reduced in size but with enough staff and resources to sustain the program and a budget plan for FY18 is under development. The BBF Executive Director and VI Team are reaching out and building strong relationships with data producers-suppliers and build compelling use cases that support their data distribution and use needs. In addition, the VI Team will look for opportunities maximize the use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to welldocumented and high-quality open-data sources. The Building Bright Futures Executive Director is working closely with its State Advisory Council to align and maximize efficiency across the multiple early childhood systems initiatives. A strong relationship has been developed with the BBF-VI technology contractor and a maintenance budget line item has been established. The technology work required of the tiered pricing model will be carefully assessed before the tier level and plan price is set

17 5.4 Key Performance Metrics By the end of FY 2018, BBF-VI will have: Successfully implemented 1. Add new revenue streams: its financial model 35% from key early childhood public/private organizations using the tiered pricing model 15% from Foundation and grant funding 10% from sponsorships and donor investors who support the collective benefit of having free access to Secure a solid data consumer - customer base Secure a solid data supplier customer base high quality child, family, and community data 2. Increase the data seeker/consumer base by 25% (1,300 to 1,625) with a monthly average of 300 customers tapping into Vermont Insights (70% increase from 175 to 300) 3. Increase the number of data suppliers and data content by 25% (9 to 12 suppliers; 57 to 72 reports/content) APPENDICES (To be added)