UpMetrics Cohorts

UpMetrics' Cohort program provides a new approach to philanthropy that helps funders and grantees to leverage technology and community to drive meaningful and accelerated social change.
community building

Collaboration

Cultivate data-driven communities that collaborate and learn together towards success across geographies, issue areas, and key stakeholders.

quant + qual data

Capacity-Building

Leverage both quantitative and qualitative data to learn, improve, and effectively tell your story of impact.

success metrics

Technology

Enable multi-level goal tracking by measuring success metrics and KPIs across nonprofit, funder, and community levels.

A data-driven approach to advancing social impact

Data can help us drive lasting social change, but only if organizations can access, understand, and use it effectively.

To fully benefit from the data revolution, we need more data skills and collaboration across mission-driven organizations.

Our Cohort programs help foundations support nonprofits with essential data skills and advanced measurement tools, while fostering trust through shared learning.

Let's Do This
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Meet nonprofits where they are today, for a better tomorrow.

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Use data to accelerate learning, collaboration, and impact.

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Measure impact across nonprofit, funder, and community levels.

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Empower grantees to define and communicate their story of impact.

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Help nonprofits build data analysis and management skills.

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Reimagine burdensome reporting across multiple stakeholder groups.

About our Cohort Programs

Our cohort model helps foundations and grantees use data, technology, and community to drive effective systems-level change.

So, how does it work?

A foundation (or group of foundations) can create or join a cohort by sponsoring 5+ nonprofit grantees who are eager to enhance their impact through data.

The program offers access to the UpMetrics platform, training sessions, professional setup services, and shared learning opportunities for 3 years.

👈 Check out this video from one of our recent peer-to-peer learning sessions for more context.

Our Cohort Programs

Since inception, our funder-grantee cohorts have been activated in more than 10 communities across the United States, servicing over 500K community members and covering all major thematic areas.

Take a look at our active cohorts for 2024 👉

US Cohorts Map revised (1)

 

Chicago
The Chicago Cohort currently supports 25 nonprofit grantees in collecting, analyzing, and reporting on data that measures the impact of their social programs. Learn More
Bay Area

The Bay Area cohort provides community-building opportunities and impact measurement technology to nonprofit grantees serving the local Bay Area community. Learn More

Southeast Michigan (Coming Soon)

Ballmer Group is partnering with UpMetrics to generously provide nonprofits serving Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties free access to our impact measurement & management platform, professional services, and peer-to-peer learning sessions for 36 months. Learn More

How We Do It

What's Included in a Cohort Program

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UpMetrics Technology

Funders and their sponsored grantees both receive access to the UpMetrics platform, while funders also receive select roll-up data from grantees.

Learn More

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Managed Services

Participants will receive guided support around the development of impact frameworks and KPIs, data collection templates, dashboard building, and more.

Learn More

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UpAcademy Sessions

Participants will be taught the fundamentals and best practices for data collection and analysis, well as how to leverage impact data to effectively tell your story.

Learn More

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Community Insight Sessions

Participants will attend quarterly shared insight sessions between funders and grantees to discuss collective impact and progress towards goals facilitated by UpMetrics.

Learn More

5+

Years of UpMetrics Cohort
Activation

120+

Grantee NPOs
Enabled via Cohorts

500K+

Community Members Served
via Grantee NPOs

Cohort Program Overview

Download our one-pager to understand how you can get involved in one of our upcoming Cohort Programs.

Download
Cohort one-pager graphic
ICU baby is doing critical work for the community. I am going to be able to do so much more for our community with access to these numbers. The dashboards and ease of accessibility to the data is so impressive.
Beth Simon
CEO, ICU Baby (Miami cohort)
beth-icu

Interested in co-sponsoring an existing Cohort or starting one of your own?

Complete the form to share a little about your organization and what you're looking to accomplish this year.

Foundations and other grantmakers:

You can choose to either sponsor your own Cohort or co-sponsor an existing Cohort.

Nonprofits:

Reach out to see how you can become a participating grantee in one of our sponsored Cohorts.

 

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FUN FACT:
Nonprofits that participated in one of our cohorts and learned how to measure and communicate the impact of their programs using UpMetrics increased their funding by 55.8% year over year.

Cohort Program FAQs

Still have questions about our cohort programs? Feel free to reach out - we'd love to discuss how we can work together to drive collective impact!

 

What topics are covered in the UpAcademy sessions?

The UpMetrics Academy is a 3 year program that empowers Nonprofits with the knowledge and tools necessary to begin telling their organizational impact story. The program brings together Nonprofits and Funders to learn and grow in a community of peers. After each participant successfully completes Year 3, they will receive an UpMetrics digital certificate that can be shared via LinkedIn. The Foundation/Funder who sponsors the grantees will receive quarterly updates via an UpMetrics Cohort Overview dashboard, which details progress made by their nonprofit partners. 

Throughout the 3-year program built into the Build-Operate-Transfer phases, Thematic-based and Place-based Cohorts will explore different subject areas and class topics such as:

  • In-Person Workshops
  • Kickoff & Data Landscape Analysis
  • Impact Goal-Setting
  • Data Best Practices
  • Surveys & Qualitative Data
  • Building Metrics Dashboards
  • Building Advanced Metrics Dashboards
  • Community Indexing
  • Sharing Insights & Storytelling
  • Thematic Area Guest Speaking Events

 

What resources are available to grantees throughout the program?

The program provides grantees access to the UpMetrics platform, assignments to guide them through their data journey, 1:1 sessions with UpMetrics staff, community events to get to know their fellow grantees, as well as the full UpMetrics resource library. 

What makes a great grantee partner?
  1. Excitement and a commitment to leverage data to move your mission forward through learning, data driven decision making and storytelling

  2. Strong senior leadership that supports the partnership with UpMetrics

  3. An internal champion that's willing to lead the engagement - both internally across teams and externally with UpMetrics. Typically the internal champion works within one of the following focus areas: 
    1. Program Operations
    2. Monitoring, Learning, and Evaluation
    3. Data & Analysis
    4. Development
What is the benefit for sponsoring foundations?

The Foundation/Funder who sponsors the grantees will receive quarterly updates via an UpMetrics Cohort Overview dashboard, which details progress made by their nonprofit partner.

Sponsoring a Cohort program is a unique way for foundations to provide their grantees with capacity-building tech services and connect them with a community of like-minded peers, guaranteeing the long-term impact of their financial support. Not only can they measure their own impact using the UpMetrics platform, their grantees will also be able to do the same, and build impact measurement and data analytics systems that will only benefit them in the future. 

What is the benefit for sponsored grantees?

Our Cohorts help foundations and nonprofit grantees to develop critical data skills that enable them to understand, maximize, and communicate outcomes in real-time, while strengthening relationships with other mission-driven organizations through shared learning.

The program provides nonprofit grantees and funders with access to the UpMetrics platform, as well as capacity-building training sessions, professional services to get up and running quickly, and UpMetrics-hosted shared learning sessions for 3 years.

How long does a typical Cohort run for?

A typical Cohort will run for 3 years to align with our services-supported Build, Operate, Transfer model.

Year 1 - Build
  • Strategic KPI development
  • Data structuring and gathering
  • Dashboard builds and data visualization
  • Qualitative data gathering
  • Historic data alignment
Year 2 - Operate
  • Regular dashboard updates, data gathering & transformation of new data
  • Regular updates to data collection and ingestion tools
  • Interface with IT teams for technology alignment
Year 3 - Transfer
  • Transition of dashboard creation and maintenance
  • Transition of data gathering and maintenance operations
  • Transition of platform administration
Do nonprofit grantees get access to the full UpMetrics platform functionality?

Sponsored nonprofit grantees will receive access to the UpMetrics features that are critical for measuring the impact of their programs and communicating that impact to their grantors and community stakeholders.

  • Data Collection and Management
  • Integrated Community Indexing Data
  • Data Analysis & Dashboards
  • Simplified Reporting
View All FAQs

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