Nonprofit Data on a For-Profit Timeline

ALEX FRONCZEK is a Director of Revenue Strategy, Analytics and Planning at Year Up United. For many people at nonprofits, “data” can feel like a four-letter word. But for Alex, his analytical skills are what brought him into the social impact field. During my second year of the Fellowship, I’ve partnered with Alex on projects for Executive-level stakeholders, and wanted to gather his perspective on the past nine years he’s spent at the organization.

Alex provides a perspective on nonprofit data that expands beyond its applications in Program Evaluation and gives us a peek into what the “corporate side” of a mission-driven organization can look like. He weighs in on what values, tactics, and habits best drive young professionals’ careers, both inside and outside of the nonprofit field.

On imagining himself in the social impact field

AVERY: Starting off, did you always imagine yourself in the social impact field?

ALEX: My journey to Year Up United happened about nine years ago in April. I’ve been here a while. I did not start off my career in the nonprofit or social impact space! I graduated from university with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance, and I ended up working for a large for-profit company called EMC Corporation at the time.

Like many young people, the world of work, particularly corporate  America, was new to me. As I was getting adjusted, it didn’t quite feel great. And as a young person, I think that’s common. When you’re in that position, you may be unsure: Is it the work itself? Is this what I want to be doing for the rest of my life? Is it the organization I’m working for?

I remember, maybe a year into the job, telling colleagues that I was going to run away to South America or Africa or somewhere and join the Peace Corps. I just wasn’t getting satisfaction out of the job. And at the same time, my family had invested a considerable amount of money into a four-year degree, right? Degrees are not cheap, and they’ve only gotten more expensive since I graduated.

So, I felt a little trapped. I felt like I didn’t know that I could do something like join a social impact organization and still be in the type of role: this analytical or technical or business-orientated role that I’m in today. I had a lot of misconceptions about these types of organizations. But I knew I needed to do something.

I had to change that overall mission of, you know, “maximizing shareholder value.” It was a publicly traded company. It just wasn’t doing it for me. Ultimately, we spend between 40 and 45 hours per week on average on our job, so you do have to find a balance and have some degree of satisfaction.

AVERY: What led to you working at Year Up United?

ALEX: I was actually recruited to Year Up United by a recruiter. They framed it as “nonprofit, mission driven organization, social impact work.” But we were going to be different. We were going to be like a business, like a little bit of hybridization.

We were going to be focused on numbers and outcomes and KPIs and professionalism. Training these young adults, who came from a background different than mine, how to integrate into corporate America, to gain more meaningful opportunities, and to bring opportunities to the communities they’re in. At the same time, they would be changing Corporate America.

We would be softening that messaging of maximizing shareholder value, and instead, we would be bringing culture and a different set of people into corporate America. Really just changing the landscape. And that felt really, really cool to me.

That’s part of what initially got me on board to work for Year Up United.

AVERY: You talked a lot about analytics and how that was framed as a distinct feature of Year Up United. For folks that work in other aspects of social impact or are considering the field, or even just for folks who aren’t familiar with how analytics works in practice at a business: How would you describe your role?

ALEX:  So, first of all, I think that’s one thing that Year Up United does very, very well. We hold ourselves accountable to the data. We have goals centered around KPIs and outcomes: Full-time Year Up United-related jobs, graduate conversion rates for internship-to-hire, average wage that ties back to a living wage.

Year Up United is positioned to let the numbers and the data guide decision-making. Everything we do goes back to those outcomes of the people we serve and ensuring that the program is meaningful to them. We measure that by the impact that it has on their lives.

The next thing I would say is that analytics is an interesting field, right? Particularly in my role, I sit in-between the business and the technical teams in a lot of ways.

I am not the most technical person. I don’t work for IT. I sit on an Operations team. My official title is “Director of Revenue Strategy, Analytics and Planning.” I support the dual revenue streams at Year Up United, pulling data and running analytics. In our revenue streams, we have corporate partner internship sales, and then we have development fundraising that we do.

As for my team’s day-to-day, there is typically a question that we get asked from someone, usually a senior leader. They may have a hypothesis, and it’s our job to find an answer. Sometimes the answer is based purely on data, but it’s not often.

Many times, I am running data, looking at numbers, then verifying and collecting qualitative feedback from, say, an account owner, or looking at survey responses or looking at even notes in Salesforce. We strive to document everything. So, analytics are part of the story, and the numbers are part of the story, but everything also needs to be verified and double-checked. We need to add that human voice for a lot of it.

Very rarely are you going to find something with a clear cut, black and white answer. So, it’s important to be able to not only run numbers and report numbers: You need to be able to tell the story of the numbers. Whether that’s written word or data visualization depends, and likely it’s a combination of the two.

AVERY: Something that I find has been unique at Year Up United, even when discussing it with other people who work at similar, large organizations like Jumpstart: It is a bit unique that we have a dedicated Research & Evaluation team. And of course, I understand that you’re not on that team, but you work with them sometimes. Many people only understand nonprofit analytics in the context of Program Evaluation. Could you discuss how your role differs, and in some ways, how your role overlaps?

ALEX: Well, one thing that we rolled out in 2024 across the entire organization were cross-functional impact goals. And these are goals that every single person across our entire 800-person organization shares, and they’re really focused on increasing collaboration. Between these different functions–Program, Sales, Research & Evaluation, even IT–we make sure that we are all centered on the same goals and moving in the same direction.

The simple answer is that I share many of the same goals with the Research & Evaluation team, which guide all of our work. I think that was a particularly smart move by the organization, and I’ve seen over the course of the previous year just how impactful and successful it was. I’m seeing more synergy across the organization in the past year than I saw the previous seven years.

We, as an example, all we share the same goal that we are held accountable to: 55% of the participants who complete their internship or work based experience at Year Up United and graduate should be hired directly into their internship partner.  So, when we have the same goals, we may not be doing the same work, but we’re moving cohesively in the same direction. We’re looking at the same thing on the horizon, and we’re moving together.

We just have different responsibilities. Research & Evaluation administers both participant and manager surveys. My team, together with the Internship Sales team, survey those interns’ supervisors who work for a corporate partner, like Bank of America. We want to make sure that our corporate partner managers or internship supervisors are happy and see the value of Year Up United’s training.

Both of our teams are invested in the collection of information from these surveys, what types of questions are asking in the surveys, and that the surveys are being leveraged effectively by the internal stakeholders, who should then be responding to the feedback gathered.

AVERY: You touched upon the idea of synergy within an organization, really putting the “united” into what is now “Year Up United.” And you mentioned earlier, when you were being recruited for this role, that the recruiter framed it in a particular way. Yes, this is a social impact organization. Yes, this is a nonprofit. But in terms of daily function, in terms of how outcomes are measured, in terms of how goals are set, it’s sort of this hybridized model.

You’re pulling a lot of tactics and strategies from the for-profit sphere. What has been different about analytical work at Year Up United, as opposed to your previous position at EMC Corporation, now part of Dell?

ALEX: Huge amounts of differences. I started out in the for-profit space, and I was young. I was very early in my career. As I had mentioned, at times did I struggle with job satisfaction. There were times when I thought the role itself was very, very difficult. And looking back now, comparing my time in that space to Year Up United, the idea that my role at EMC Corporation at the time was difficult– it’s pretty laughable.

When you’re in an organization doing approximately $25 billion in revenue pre-acquisition, you have roughly 100,000 employees. You have so much structure, you have so much process, and you have so many resources at your disposal.

It’s not difficult, right? I mean, it’s the classic pyramid shape. You’re at the bottom and there’s about 40 layers above you.

Analytics in that space was still pulling data out of a system, running it, reporting it up the command chain or the ladder. But you weren’t innovating. Because the way it would work is: “There’s a total org wide number that needs to get reported up.” You have Europe, Middle East, Africa, and you have North America. You have your regions or continents across the globe. And then they each have a number, and then within those numbers, you’ve got all your individual teams. I was just doing a little tiny slice. Long story short, nonprofit analytical work is nothing like that.

At Year Up United, my team is three people, and we’re reporting on all the revenue for the entire organization. There is no such thing as process and structure, because by the time you get any sort of process and structure in place at an organization like ours, we’re innovating and we’re changing. We’re needing to break standards, because, you know, the next thing is here, and we need to remain agile.

At an organization of our size, you either innovate or you die! There’s usually no acquiring a nonprofit.

It’s a completely different world. It’s exciting. It’s amazing. If you like to create, if you like to work hard, it’s a good spot. But there are also no excuses.

There’s no such thing as, like, “Oh well, you know, that’s not my job. That’s Avery’s job. That’s Stephanie’s job.” No, you need to find the answer. You, at a minimum, should have an explanation for why we can’t do this right now, and have a plan for how we’re going to do something in the future.

It is a night and day difference. Some days I miss the old organization. Some days I don’t! Some days I love my job here because of this freedom, this flexibility, and this opportunity to really be creative. Some days I’m tired, and it’s not the easiest.

I will say that the guiding thread is working on something that is having an extremely positive impact on people’s lives. Our mission isn’t maximizing stock price or making the most money that I possibly can and checking out for the day. That’s really what keeps me going. I think that’s the best, strongest, most powerful motivator you could possibly have. I think every one of my colleagues at Year Up United, if you were to interview them, every single person would tell you the same story.

It’s not an easy job and can be very difficult at times. It’s not fun to not have the resources that you need or a process in place. Having to constantly innovate is very challenging.

It’s simultaneously incredibly motivating when you see young adults graduate from our program and hear from them directly. That’s when you see the wages and the full-time jobs. You can hear stories of them being the first one in their family to purchase a home or a car. There’s just so many positive things that really keep you going in a way that I don’t think I would ever personally get from working for a large, publicly traded company.

AVERY: I think there are a lot of things about nonprofits, about social impact organizations of any size, which are driven by a “startup ethos.” Something is always having to be fixed. Always having to innovate, but also having to patch things up. And yes, there’s a lot of challenge, but there’s a lot of reward.

Talking about seeing that reward in action, that positive downstream impact–for a long time, everyone at Year Up United was expected involve themselves in direct service.  The organization has really grown. There are some roles that are students facing by nature and some that aren’t. You’re in a role that doesn’t necessarily involve direct student interaction, but you opt into it.

How important has that direct service element been for you?

ALEX: It’s the most important thing we do. Without a doubt. I can’t even adequately describe how important it is, or even how rewarding it is. When I first joined the organization I thought, “Oh, this is cool, I get to work with students.” And then you do it, and it changes you.

It’s not always easy. You’re dealing with people who have challenges in their lives that can be completely foreign to your own. You might not have even thought of engaging with participants in this way. But when you actually see them in-person and you’re connecting with them: it’s really life changing, and it affects you.

Of course I’ve done direct service. There’s a number of different ways to get involved. You could be a direct coach and in a Learning Community a couple times a week. If you don’t have time for that, you could be a one-on-one mentor, which is maybe a bimonthly commitment. It’s still incredibly rewarding and meaningful for the program participant as well.

I’ll just leave it at that.  It’s singlehandedly the most important thing that we do. It’s the best part of the job, hands down.

AVERY: Thank you for the knowledge you’ve shared. Bringing our conversation to a close and talking about that development of young talent and opportunity-ready talent… What’s some advice that you have for young professionals, be it in social impact or out of it?

ALEX: So, you really, really have to be curious and constantly learning. It could be book learning, it could be watching YouTube, but it could also be social learning. It could be networking. It should be networking.

Because to be honest, your next opportunity is not going to just be handed to you. It isn’t random. Frankly, it’s hard to apply to a job and be noticed nowadays. So, you’ve got to not only be constantly learning–you’ve got to be networking.

If you’re in-person, walk to a different floor. Ask what a team does. “What does your workday look like? What skills do you use?” If you’re virtual, like, go on your company’s org chart and just pick out some folks and send them an email. Say, like, “Hey, I’m so-and-so I work on this team. This is what we do. I’m curious about your team. What do you guys do?” Set up a virtual coffee.

The more curious and the more noticed you can be, the better off you’re going to be. If you want to be kind of quiet and sit in a corner, that’s still doable. Your own team will know you, but it’s going to be more difficult to advance your career.

I would also say being confident goes a long way, particularly if someone taps you for something. What I mean by that is that nobody has all the answers. Nobody has the perfect answer. I think I touched on it earlier, where data are a piece of the puzzle, but not the whole story.

If somebody asks you , let’s say: “Why are renewal rates going down?” You don’t just want to say, “I don’t know. I can’t do that. I don’t know.” You’re not doing yourself a favor. You’re not doing them a favor. They’re just going to walk away dissatisfied saying, “This was no help..”

Offer suggestions. You want to be honest! You don’t want to completely bluff, but you also want to project confidence in your answer. “We could try this. We you could look at this. This may be a cause.” Propose a couple different answers or a couple different factors. You’re going to go a lot farther the more confident you can be.

Two final thoughts. One: don’t let perfection get in the way of progress. Two: learn to set your boundaries. If you cannot articulate boundaries and negotiate timeframes and deliverables with people, it is very, very easy to be completely overwhelmed and underwater. That all goes back to projecting confidence.

AVERY: Thank you for all of your insight.

ALEX: Thank you so much. This was a real pleasure, Avery.

Picture of Avery Trinidad

Avery Trinidad

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

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