Starfish Greathearts
Nonprofit
Starfish is dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable, orphaned children. The foundation works hand-in-hand with different organizations to provide meals, education, healthcare and social services for these children, as well as food parcel delivery to child-headed and other vulnerable families within the community.
Starfish has partnered with MethodData to build out a solution that leverages a cost-effective, off-the-shelf application to store data and create reports that will be sent to donors to show accountability and transparency around how their generous contributions are making a difference. The real-time collection of data from the field would be critical in providing a status of the children, and reconciling urgently services needed and received.
At the core of the work by Starfish is the measurable improvement to the lives of orphans and vulnerable children. To do this, they must assess whether the situation of the child is improving by collecting data about the child over time. This was especially challenging as the data was previously captured on paper and often in remote areas that have poor cellular network coverage.
To create awareness and feedback to donors and funding bodies a certain level of data must be shared but the privacy of children and their families is of utmost importance. This is done by producing high-quality financial, narrative and statistical reports that describe how funds have been used and the needs that have yet to be met. If this is not done correctly, the foundation could risk the loss of funding and deregistration which would have a catastrophic downstream effect on the children and the communities they support.
In order to make spread out and often ad-hoc research data available on a real-time basis, MethodData chose industry leading REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) application as data collection and management mechanism. This is where AWS becomes equally important. AWS provides the ability to scale resources up or down based on the demands of the REDCap application. This is particularly useful for data capture projects that have varying levels of data collection and user interaction over time and at different points in the year. In addition, AWS offers robust security features that align with global compliance protocols. For REDCap, which often handles sensitive research data, this aspect is crucial. AWS's security measures include network security, encryption, identity and access control, and monitoring and logging, making it an excellent choice for maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive data. The high availability, global reach, and cost-effectiveness of data storage were all additional contributors to the solution. In light of these capabilities, Starfish subsequently chose AWS as its primary cloud platform.
The migration from part paper and part spreadsheet data collection to surveys and automated uploads has allowed Starfish to collect data more consistently and efficiently than was previously possible. It has also:
-Significantly reduced data errors in reporting
-Increased reporting compliance and reporting speeds (from 45 days to 5 days)
-Reduced reporting time for recipients including travel times for computer and internet access in rural areas from 6 hours to under 10 min
-Streamlined process has allowed Starfish to understand and respond to situations on the ground rapidly
-Reports and dashboards have increased donor and international chapter confidence and participation.
-The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that stunting, or low height-for-age, affects approximately 27% of children under five in Southern Africa. Having the data first hand to track the nutritional needs and provisions of children is now possible on a near real time basis.
According to UNICEF, only 51% of children under five in Southern Africa are registered with a healthcare provider. Malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare contribute to approximately 45% of deaths among children under five in Southern Africa. Starfish is now better able to provide data points on children that might otherwise forever be left out of the system.
The rollout of REDCap continues across the organization and is continuously being optimized to better suit the needs of Starfish Greathearts Foundation and its recipients. Future steps include technology consolidation across the international chapters and stepwise digital transformation across their technology stack.
