Translating Insights into Action, and Other Big Ideasย
JEREMIAH PRINCE is the Director of Labor Market Insights within the Research and Evaluation team at Year Up United. For Jeremiah, data isn’t just numbers on a screenโit’s the foundation for making informed decisions that advance social equity. His journey from Brown University to Year Up United reflects his commitment to using analytical skills to create meaningful change.ย

During our conversation, I had the chance to learn how his personal experiences with public policy shaped his career path in the social impact sector.
Jeremiah provides a nuanced perspective on how research and evaluation functions within mission-driven organizations are bridging the gap between academic rigor and practical decision-making. He offers valuable insights for both qualitative and quantitative minds looking to enter the field, emphasizing that the translation of data into actionable insights is where the real impact happens. For early-career professionals interested in applied research or program evaluation, Jeremiah’s advice on building a portfolio and focusing on skills less likely to be automated could be the guidance needed to navigate a rapidly evolving job market.
What led him to social impact and Year Up United
AVERY: What led you to work at Year Up United? Did you always imagine yourself working within the social impact field?
JEREMIAH: So I guess I’ll start with, did I always envision myself working in social impact space? Not really, but I mean, as long as I’ve had a career, it’s been in the social impact space. So, it’s more that I didn’t go into college thinking I would work in social impact,. I’m a Black person, and I was going into Brown University. Itโs an Ivy League university. It’s a type of environment I would have never seen myself in. I was just trying to do well in school.
There was a recruitment event that happened where it was Brown, MIT, and Yale. They were going state-to-state and holding events that they would invite students to based on PSAT scores, or something like that. I went to one of those events, and I found out about the financial aid that they had. Given my family’s income at the time, I was like, “Oh, this is way more viable than I would have thought.”
Brown, in particular, had some characteristics that I really liked. They had an open curriculum. So you have either your major or your concentration that has certain requirements. But outside of that, everything else is available to you; everything you can treat as an elective.
My first plan was to go into Computer Science and become a programmer. I thought, “Hey, maybe I can work on video games. Maybe I can work in the finance space.” It didn’t end up sticking; after my first semester, I was like, โOkay, I’m not doing Computer Science. I’m going to do something else.โโ
I ended up doing Neuroscience, because I was interested in the human brain, and then Political Science, because I was interested in politics.
There had been pre-orientation program that focused on people from different marginalized identities. It was just a way to prepare the community to lift each other up, and to also know some of the history of activism and social impact in the Brown University student body. That was a very impactful experience in terms of priming me for a bigger interest in social impact, policy, and politics.
As I took more classes, I started to realize that it was less Political Science that I was interested in, and that I was more interested in Policy. As I engaged more and learned more about the policy world, I learned that there are people whose job it is to use the tools of analysis, data, and critical thought to think about and advise on policies, and to ultimately author and implement them.
As somebody who grew up Black and low income in South Carolina, I benefited directly from certain policies. SNAP, free and reduced lunch, Medicaid, stuff like that. Without some of those things, based on the ways that we struggled, I don’t know that I would have even made it to the situation that I was in. Those things are not equitably distributed by any means, and policy is one of the ways that we can fix that. That’s kind of why I ended up becoming preoccupied with policy and social impact.
I went through the master’s program just to make sure I had the skills that I felt like I needed to actually do the work. Then I got a job through one of my professors for that program. I started working at Opportunity Insights at Harvard, a research institute and think tank focused on economic opportunity. It was a valuable experience working there as a policy analyst, where the goal was to translate research insights to policy makers.
Ultimately, though, it is a research institute, and so the primary goal that subsumes everything else is publishing high quality economics research papers. That’s a worthwhile goal, for sure. But because a lot of my interest had to do with social impact, I wanted to go take these skills that I built in school and refined in this job, and then go into an organization more mission-driven and focused on social impact. Year Up United is an organization I was familiar with in my role because Year Up United’s outcomes for young adults of color who come from low income backgrounds were pretty exceptional. When a job opened up at Year Up United, it was right in my wheelhouse and exactly matched my skill and career stage. I’ve been here ever since.
How he'd describe his role in Research & Evaluation
AVERY: For people not familiar with Research & Evaluation, how would you describe your role?
JEREMIAH: I say โbusinessโ as a generic term–but even when you’re doing your nonprofit pursuit of mission, and especially when you need to expand your business or make changes, you just have to make decisions. When you have to make business decisions, then you want to make decisions based on the best information and logic possible. You want them to be informed and grounded in understanding what you’re doing, with a focus on your mission. Year Up United’s mission is to close the opportunity divide through certain programs and systemic interventions, working directly with companies to change the landscape of hiring.
With what we’re already doing, we want to make sure that we’re doing it well and that it’s worthwhile. Research & Evaluation helps ensure that. We use various data collection and analysis methods to get data on how effective our programs are and then relay that information to the people who have control over it or have a stake in it.
A lot of these processes are automated now, at least in theory. Information about how students are doing–retention, grades, outcomes from the last cycle, projected outcomes for the new cycle, survey results–all of that is accessible in dashboards that staff can use to refine or adjust their approach to maximize effectiveness. Or if things are going great, we know to preserve that structure or approach.
When considering something new, data helps make that an informed decision. The lowest quality form of information is just a hunch: “This seems like a good idea.” A higher quality form of information, because it’s easier to share and more transparent, is data.
Quantitative data aren’t the only source of information business decisions should be made from, but they’re a very important source. So, in running an existing business and expanding into new areas, any organization over a certain size constantly makes decisions. Data collection, analysis, and presentation of that analysis help the organization make those decisions in as informed a way as possible.
I spend a lot of time in R and SQL, pulling data, manipulating and cleaning datasets, and producing statistics using tools more flexible and powerful than Excel. Part of my benefit to the organization is that I can do things software-wise that not everybody can do. Something that might take others a long time, I can do relatively quickly. And then, boom: the data is ready in a form that helps us make decisions.
How his team thinks about ROI from research
AVERY: How does your team think about “ROI” when it comes to your research?
JEREMIAH: Most of the return on investment comes in the form of development funding. As a nonprofit organization, philanthropic funding is a huge part of our model, as is the revenue from corporate partners where we place interns. Research & Evaluation heavily supports this revenue.
We’re just paying the in-house cost for staff salaries and software. Those costs are relatively low, especially when compared with contracting that work out, and allows us to avoid the resource time it would take to find and vet potential research partners. When the organization shows results, it’s much easier to make the case for philanthropic dollars.
There’s an analysis that shows every dollar invested in Year Up United produces over two and a half dollars of value back into the economy. That helps make the case for investment in Year Up United.
We’re also working hard to ensure the organization’s decision-making is informed by research and evaluation. Year Up United moves fast, with things changing cycle over cycle. In the past, it was less centralized–more local chapters under one umbrella, rather than places implementing the central organization’s programs.
To maximize return on investment, the data needs to come in earlier. Decisions should be based on data, so that we can have confidence that a decision or pursuit will be more fruitful because we tested it first.
Currently, I’m working on Opportunity Management rubrics that we’ve developed. When an opportunity for entering a new market, working with a new employer, or enhancing curriculum comes up, we evaluate it on certain parameters. If it scores highly enough relative to other opportunities that we could dedicate resources to, we’ll pursue it.
The return on investment comes from pursuing better opportunities. Every opportunity to enhance or expand the program’s impact we can take advantage of because of data-driven insights from the outset: literally driving revenue.
Advice for pursuing research or program evaluation roles
AVERY: Do you have any advice for people who might be interested in pursuing Applied Research or Program Evaluation as a career path?
JEREMIAH: One piece of advice that’s common to different fields (but still helpful here) is having a portfolio. Not that someone necessarily needs a portfolio, but the same logic applies. If you had an internship or a class with involved projects, even without full-time work experience, if you’ve done any data analysis (even for school or an internship), save something from that. Make sure you have it on hand to talk about or show someone to demonstrate that you’ve done data analysis before.
When I got my first job, it was helpful that the professor had seen my work through teaching me: he’d seen my project results and presentations. When I applied for Year Up United, one task was to present an analysis I’d done in the past. I had been working a couple of years, so I had plenty of examples, but even one example is astronomically better than having no demonstrated capability. Whether that’s quantitative or qualitative is kind of immaterial.
Some jobs may have a heavy quantitative focus, but what’s most important is showing the steps from information to insights.
If it’s a research project, the insights need to be sound from a research perspective. If the goal was decision-making, then how would someone walk away from this analysis thinking about what decision to make? What would it have changed? That’s more important to demonstrate than any quantitative versus qualitative skill.
The other thing I’ll mention is technology–not just AI as we’ve come to think about it in the current boom. Automation technologies are making advanced data analysis more accessible to less technical people, and this trend won’t stop. Focus on skills that are less likely to be automated–the translation of statistics or data into insights relevant for decisions or narratives.
This requires understanding organizational context, stakeholders, how persuasive different types of evidence are, and potential confounding factors. Navigating all those pieces of information to produce relevant insights is critical.

Avery Trinidad
Avery (he/him) is the Research & Insights FAO Schwarz Fellow at Year Up United in New York City.
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