As a workforce development nonprofit, EmployIndy sees success stories every day. It helps people in Indianapolis improve their skills, and it connects them with jobs. But it’s hard to know what all those personal stories add up to. What difference does the work of EmployIndy make? How does one success story fit into the bigger picture? SAVI is helping answer those questions.
Brianna Ingram participated in EmployIndy’s Youth Services program, YouthBuild Indy, which led to a full-time position at WorkHere and training at Ivy Tech in their IvyWorks software development program.
EmployIndy partners with employers and community organizations on programs that teach local residents the skills and tools they need to find—and keep—a job. Last year, it launched a strategic initiative that focuses on a handful of target areas that have particularly high levels of crime, unemployment, and poverty. It’s using SAVI to establish baseline data for these neighborhoods.
“For the type of work that we do, it’s tricky to measure things,” says Joe Backe, EmployIndy’s communications manager. “Our plan involves registering an impact in a specific area, and using SAVI data to look at that specific area. To have a starting point for a variety of data about neighborhoods— demographics, employment statistics, education levels, things like that—and to be able to pull all of that in one place is pretty cool.”
The data EmployIndy draws from SAVI will help it track its results over time and tailor its programs to meet the needs of the target communities more effectively.
“We can establish where we’re at now, look for the change, and very quickly see if we’re having an impact on the community,” Backe says. “Having tools like SAVI, we can hold ourselves accountable to the goals we’re setting, and we can prove that we’re doing what we say we’re going to do. It gives us momentum. Being able to show we’re having an impact is really important. And you’ve got to have the numbers to do that.”
