Wood for Trees Analyst Kayleigh Philps shortlisted for DataIQ award

We’re delighted to announce Wood for Trees Analyst, Kayleigh Philps, has been shortlisted for a DataIQ award. As this year’s shortlist was streamed live yesterday (30 June 2022), we were excited to learn Kayleigh has been selected by the judging panel as a candidate for the ‘New Talent or Data Apprentice (Agency or Consultancy)’ award, which forms part of the ‘People’ category.

This is the second consecutive year Wood for Trees has been shortlisted for a DataIQ award. Last year, our InsightHub charity benchmarking and reporting tool was shortlisted in the ‘Innovation’ category for the ‘Data Enabling Solution of the Year (Data Enabler)’ award.

There are numerous reasons why we could’ve nominated Kayleigh – she’s been an exceptional addition to the analysis team with her infectious enthusiasm, willingness to learn and thoughtful contributions over the last three years.

But what’s been standout is her keen interest in Psychology and how, since completing the Certificate in Philanthropic Psychology from the Institute of Sustainable Philanthropy with distinction in 2020, it’s inspired her to wonder how text analysis techniques could be developed to find supporter motivations behind charitable giving and, furthermore, create a way for our charity clients to analyse fundraising event motivations.

Collaborating with University of Bath postgraduate student, Ruomei Wei, Kayleigh conducted a feasibility study using pioneering techniques (natural language processing and text analysis) to analyse words and phrases in fundraising stories based on three key philanthropic psychological motivations (identity, relationship and situational motivations), to score and segment supporters.

Since the project’s completion, Kayleigh has led promoting and presenting the study’s proof of concept to our charity clients, executed with clarity and authority, with a deep understanding of the subject, which has led to continuing to deliver meaningful sentiment analysis to help charities plan more successful and targeted fundraising events.

Kayleigh has also co-authored a whitepaper on the topic with Consultant Analyst, Stephen Brown and Director of Analysis, Andrew Sargent, of which a free copy can be requested here. Kayleigh and Stephen have also hosted a webinar, telling attendees what motivates supporters to participate in fundraising events – watch it here.

Congratulations on being shortlisted for the DataIQ Awards 2022 Kayleigh! It’s thoroughly deserved. And congratulations to everyone shortlisted for an award this year, we wish you good luck. We’re looking forward to awards night on 29 September 2022 to find out who the judges deem the worthy winners.