MDRC is pleased to announce the launch of the MDRC Center for Data Insights to help government agencies, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations improve their programs and systems by harnessing the benefits of operational data-science techniques to produce actionable insights. The Center helps its partners use data analytics to enhance their practices, organizational cultures, and the structure of their work in a sustainable way, to ultimately lower their costs and improve the outcomes for their clients.

MDRC has more than four decades of experience in developing, evaluating, and improving social and education programs, as well as in managing and analyzing vast amounts of data in ways that meet the highest standards of responsibility, security, and privacy. With the creation of the MDRC Center for Data Insights, MDRC is furthering its long-standing commitment to helping our partners improve their programs and systems. Ranging from simple descriptive summaries to advanced machine learning algorithms, the Center’s eight current projects aim to use institutions’ increasingly rich data to provide new insights that can help them refine and target their services.

Led by Rick Hendra and Kristin Porter, staff members in the Center for Data Insights bring expertise as data scientists, data engineers, statisticians, economists, programmers, behavioral scientists, and public-policy experts. In addition, the Center draws on the expertise of other MDRC staff members who are former social service and educational administrators, teachers, and front-line human service workers.

For more information, visit the Center’s project description or contact: MDRCDataInsights@mdrc.org.