Students Help YMCA Drive Community Impact

Minnesota Carlson students are connecting the YMCA of the North with data-driven insights to help the nonprofit advance its mission of innovating to meet evolving community needs.

For their capstone project this summer, a group of five Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) students completed a data analysis for the YMCA of the North, which serves Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

“Our main goal was to create dashboards to visualize what the impacts are that the YMCA is looking at in regards to engagement,” says Charlotte Wang, ’25 MSBA, who worked on the project.

Using YMCA member and program participant data, the students created a dashboard to map out how people interact with the Y across its camps, gyms, aquatics, community programming, charitable giving, and more. A second dashboard paired the participant information with external data of social drivers of health—such as economic stability, education, and food access—to help the Y build a strategy for its community-driven mission.

“The dashboards are giving them the opportunity to explore all of the data at once,” says Jacob Battles, ’25 MSBA, who also worked on the project. “It just builds bridges between different departments within the organization and gives everybody the same picture. Currently, they’re all seeing different pieces of the puzzle, but we’re really looking to connect all those pieces and give them a much clearer view of how to move forward.”

Across three months, the students worked closely with Minnesota Carlson faculty to refine the technical aspects and met with Carlson Analytics Lab staff members to hone their presentation skills to communicate their findings. Wang says their comprehensive support was empowering. 

“It feels like I’m not standing in front of the client by myself,” says Wang. “There’s also Carlson, a lot of people supporting us behind the scenes to be more confident.”

Jenny Collins, vice president of educational impact at the YMCA of the North, says the students’ analysis and dashboards are already having an immediate impact as staff incorporate the findings into the Y’s strategic plan refresh.

“The YMCA of the North has always been community-driven, and this partnership with Minnesota Carlson has allowed us to be more data-driven,” says Collins. “Working with the students really surpassed my expectations. What I thought we could accomplish in our time together this summer was multiplied by about 10. The students would come back with more ideas and curiosity. They’d say, ‘We think the data could help us get to further insights.’ And each time we'd say, ‘Let’s go. Let’s try it.’”

Battles adds that he enjoyed the opportunity to dive into a hands-on project with a real-world client.

“The YMCA seemed really excited about the direction that they’re moving in and excited to use the work that we’ve done going forward,” says Battles. “We all walked away with huge smiles on our faces and feeling like we were making a difference for them and the community.”