CASE STUDY
How FaithBridge Foster Care
scaled 450% through actionable
data insights
Strategy
UI/UX Design
Web Development
Business Intelligence
CASE STUDY
Strategy
UI/UX Design
Web Development
Business Intelligence
When your mission is mobilizing churches to solve foster care crises, every data point represents a facet of a child's future. Leaders at FaithBridge Foster Care partnered with Kalon to transform their fragmented data systems into a strategic advantage.
THE CHALLENGE
FaithBridge Foster Care has grown significantly
since its founding in 2007 and now serves hundreds
of children across Georgia each year. Their mission?
To mobilize local churches to help solve foster care crises. But as CEO Bob Bruder-Mattson discovered, their growth had outpaced their ability to
understand their own impact.
Design
Data Modeling
ETL Pipelines
Custom Reports
Web App Development
SQL Server
Power BI
.NET
SSIS
The organization faced a painful reality: its data systems were rich in data, but were designed to store information, not provide insights. They were spending a significant amount of time creating reports for government reporting, their donors, and their board. Each report required manual effort, and data was siloed into spreadsheets and locked in their case management system.
VP of Operations Jessi Esterling knew the frustration of these broken systems intimately.
"It would take hours in a conference room, poring over spreadsheets and asking our staff to compile information. Even simple questions like, 'How many churches are we working with?' were difficult
to answer. I'd pull a spreadsheet, but if people were entering data differently,
it was very hard to get the answers our leadership and board needed."
The crisis moment came during strategic planning. FaithBridge had created ambitious goals and objectives,
but when they tried to measure progress, they hit a wall.
"We started saying we might need to modify our strategic plan because we couldn't answer the data questions. That conversation was so absurd… it became really clear that we needed to do something different."
THE PARTNERSHIP
When FaithBridge connected with Kalon, the approach was different from typical technology vendors.
Rather than proposing immediate technical solutions, Kalon began with understanding.
Kalon worked with FaithBridge to identify their critical questions across three key areas:
How much impact were they generating?
How long were processes taking?
Were children safe and well-served?
"We decided to create lagging outcomes, but we also knew that working with people means change can be slow,” Bob said. “So we needed leading indicators: ways to know we're on the right track to achieve the outcomes we wanted."
One of Kalon's key insights was understanding FaithBridge's workforce. These were people-focused professionals who had chosen social work to help families, not to become data analysts.
"[At Faithbridge,] we're working with social workers: people-oriented professionals who typically aren't numbers people. That's why they went into social work: they want to work with people, not numbers. Trying to engage our staff without the right tools was really challenging,”
Bob recalls.
Rather than scrapping FaithBridge's existing systems, Kalon built a centralized data warehouse using SQL Server and SSIS, pulling in data from their case management tool, extendedReach, and their foster family training tool, Absorb. They also created a customized reporting solution that offered a visual dashboard and dynamic reports tailored to their needs, in addition to Power BI reports that allowed them to drill down into Faithbridge’s data.
THE SOLUTION
Kalon designed a comprehensive data platform that transformed how FaithBridge operated:
THE TRANSFORMATION
In the words of Faithbridge leadership, the results of their partnership with Kalon
extended far beyond operational efficiency:
"Data is now part of our daily conversations. There wouldn't be a meeting where data isn't discussed… it's changed our culture completely."
"[Kalon’s system] saved us full-time positions. We would have needed whole team dedicated to just answering questions and digging into data. It's saved us tremendous time."
"We're four and a half times bigger than we were nine years ago. I'm not sure what would have happened without the data. I don't know how we would have grown or made good choices."
"Our people come prepared with reports and are ready to discuss the data. It's improved our leadership, and our people are making decisions based on data. That's really exciting to see."
THE IMPACT
FaithBridge's Youth Opportunities Program, which supports youth aging out of foster care, grew from serving one child to 271 in just two years. This growth was only possible because they could track and optimize their approach in real-time.
"I can't imagine not having [Kalon’s system]. I don't know what it's like to fly an airplane, but I imagine it would be like flying without instruments. That's what it felt like before."
The data platform amplified FaithBridge's ability to serve children and families. Staff could focus on relationship-building and program delivery instead of spending hours in conference rooms trying to answer basic questions.
THE KALON DIFFERENCE
FaithBridge's success story illustrates Kalon's unique approach to nonprofit technology partnerships:
Kalon invested time in understanding FaithBridge's mission, culture, and constraints before proposing technical solutions.
The solution respected the reality that social workers aren’t data analysts while still providing the insights leadership needed.
Over nearly 10 years of partnership, Kalon has continued evolving the platform to meet FaithBridge’s changing needs, from basic reporting to sophisticated program tracking.
The data warehouse approach allows FaithBridge to integrate new systems and track new metrics without rebuilding from scratch.
LOOKING FORWARD
Today, FaithBridge Foster Care operates with the data infrastructure of a much larger organization while maintaining the heart and agility that drives its mission. The team’s quarterly community meetings include data discussions where every team member understands organizational goals and their role in achieving them.
Faithbridge CEO Bob Bruder-Mattson has advice after reflecting on the journey to data maturity: "Focus on the things that are really important and get started. Get answers to your most critical questions, and you're going to feel better… it'll be worth it. We did a lot of work, but I don't know where we would be today without it."
For organizations ready to transform their data chaos into strategic clarity, FaithBridge's story offers both inspiration and a proven roadmap. When mission-driven organizations have the insights they need to make confident decisions, everyone wins, especially the communities they serve.
