Introduction to Chance Creators
Chance Creators Group is an award winning certified social enterprise and registered charity which transforms lives, reduces reoffending and avoids the cost of re-incarceration. They create chances for people who have been impacted by the justice system. They do this by providing meaningful employment and wraparound support through our two social enterprises, Fruit2Work and Recycle4Change. In doing so they reduce recidivism and its significant social impact costs.
Fruit2Work delivers office fruit, milk and pantry supplies across Metropolitan Melbourne, Greater Geelong and Ballarat. Recycle4Change operates the Victorian State Government’s Container Deposit Scheme (CDS), spanning from Geelong to Laverton North in Melbourne’s west.

Project Overview
Chance Creators were currently using Excel for all their reporting needs (both internally and externally to their funding partners). However, as their operations grew, they needed a more efficient, user-friendly, and scalable solution to analyse their data and share reports easily.
This is where we come in!

The Approach
Our approach involved building solid foundations first (like building a house's framework), before adding on enhancements (e.g. wallpaper, adding built-in storage etc).
To do this, we first ran workshops with Chance Creators' to understand their requirements, key metrics and data sources. Our goal wasn't just to create a nice looking dashboard, but to build a functional tool that could be integrated seamlessly into their current Microsoft ecosystem, and could be easily shared and exported for their internal and external reporting needs.
We then plugged ourselves into their tech ecosystem to understand where their data was stored, how it was updated and how their data pipeline was maintained. Once we had an idea of their data landscape, we delved deeper into their key metrics, to not only understand their definitions but also the broader business context behind them. This allowed us to tailor our dashboard to address their real business needs.
From there, we worked closely with Chance Creators through an iterative process of gathering feedback and refining the dashboard. Allowing us to add meaningful features like filters, groupings and UX enhancements.
The Dashboard
The Power BI dashboard tracks and analyses key people, environmental and financial metrics for Chance Creators, integrating into their Microsoft ecosystem.

Features include dates, employment status, location, and demographic filters, allowing for target analysis. It offers metrics at a glance, whilst also showing more in depth charts, so they can drill down for details, hover for insights, and export data for reports for actionable insights.
The Outcome
This dashboard provides an efficient yet powerful way to communicate their impact to external partners and to explore their own data to gain actionable insights. Answering questions like, what their environmental impact is on the community, and what their employment program outcomes are.
The dashboard has been successfully handed over to Chance Creators,, allowing them to explore and build upon their new capabilities. As always, we'll remain available for a while to answer questions and resolve any issues that arise.
By Tina Mu (GDI Volunteer)

About GDI:
The Good Data Institute (established 2019) is a registered not-for-profit organisation (ABN: 6664087941) that aims to give not-for-profits access to data analytics (D&A) support & tools. Our mission is to be the bridge between the not-for-profit world and the world of data analytics practitioners wishing to do social good. Using D&A, we identify, share, and help implement the most effective means for growing NFP people, organisations, and their impact.
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