ISC-led “Gateway” program is transforming the way newcomers to Canada can access critical support services such as housing, healthcare, and education in the pursuit of unleashing their economic, social, and civic potential.

CALGARY, AB – March 28, 2022 – On Thursday at the 24th Metropolis Canada Conference in Vancouver, a conference focused on the future of immigration, settlement, and integration in Canada, leaders from Immigrant Services Calgary (ISC), Finley & Associates, and Luniko Consulting showcased how new applications of business intelligence solutions are improving policy and service delivery for newcomers to Canada.

“Most non-profits are collecting data, but only a few of them know how to properly extract maximum value to make decisions,” says Garlon Yau, Partner of Data Analytics at Luniko Consulting. “It’s been very rewarding to work with Immigrant Services Calgary to develop business intelligence tools that visualize data trends in order to improve service delivery and policies. The non-profit sector has so much opportunity ahead, and we’re excited to help more NPOs along their journeys to data-driven transformation.”

A New Era for Canada’s Non-Profit Immigration and Settlement Sector

Based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Gateway is a program that is transforming the way newcomers experience settling in Canada by making it less complex and less challenging for them to access critical support services such as housing, healthcare, and education. Gateway serves as “a personal guide to help each newcomer through their unique journey, connecting them to the right service at the right agency every time helping unleash their economic, social, and civic potential.”

“Our passion to serve newcomers and provide them with a smooth and successful transition to their new home in Canada is what drove us to develop Gateway,” says Hyder Hassan, CEO at Immigrant Services Calgary. “Prior to Gateway, the settlement sector in Calgary was siloed, with each organization functioning individually rather than in coordination with one another. This resulted in many newcomers falling through the cracks, with no clear path for how to access critical support services to help them settle in Calgary. Gateway partners work collaboratively to ensure all newcomers are given appropriate referrals and clear directions on how to quickly achieve their personal and professional goals in their new homeland.”

Gateway’s data-driven approach to reducing barriers for newcomers is already taking the sector by storm, with over 800 programs and services already integrated into the platform to support newcomers to Canada.

“The technical backbone of Gateway is a platform—a tightly integrated combination of a secure data center, reports, and forms. It allows for multiple channels of client intake and customized workflows for different types of assessment and personalized plans. The Gateway system will also include a Knowledge Hub where anonymous newcomer data can be analyzed by researchers, funders and policy advisors.”

—Hyder Hassan, CEO at Immigrant Services Calgary

Sustainable Transformation: Governance + BI

Leading up to the creation of Gateway, Finley & Associates facilitated strategic planning with ISC to create a key performance indicators (KPI) framework in support of ISC’s objective to provide better support to newcomers. Once this framework was in place, Luniko was brought on to streamline and automate the process of reporting the KPI framework to the leadership team and to the board by developing a custom dashboard to centralize key metrics in one place.

“Leadership teams must be equipped with timely, reliable insights,” says Donna Finley, Founder and Strategist at Finley & Associates. “The futures of their organizations depend on it. Developing a strategic plan is a big step in the right direction; measuring progress against the plan is what will help them achieve their plan’s intended value. Organizations must be prepared to identify, collect, and analyze data to support their objectives and inform their decisions.”

“Prior to Gateway, ISC had been collecting large amounts of newcomer data and spearheaded many initiatives throughout the organization to better serve newcomers,” says Hassan. “But our data was scattered, reporting was manual, and overall efforts were hindered because of it. With the proper business intelligence solutions in place, our team is better equipped to support newcomers to Canada by connecting them to the right service at the right agency every time—helping unleash their economic, social, and civic potential.”

This article was first published by Luniko Consulting