01 / FRAME
Turn the problem into an answerable question.
Define what leadership needs to know, what evidence would answer it, and what can reasonably be concluded within the available scope.
Applied research for local government & nonprofits
Get a defensible answer to the question in front of you.
Community Analytics helps public and mission-driven organizations answer bounded policy, management, program, and community questions using the evidence they already have—and the public data they do not have time to assemble.
You may not need a consultant for six months. You may need an answer to one consequential question.
“Is this program actually reaching the people it was designed to serve?”
“What is driving the change we’re seeing in these neighborhoods?”
“We collect a lot of data. What can it actually tell us?”
“Leadership wants evidence before making this decision. What do we know?”
What we do
From messy question to usable evidence.
The methods change with the question. The discipline does not.
02 / ASSEMBLE
Make sense of the evidence you already have.
Administrative records, spreadsheets, surveys, interviews, reports, maps, and public data rarely arrive analysis-ready. We reconcile what matters.
03 / ANALYZE
Go beyond the obvious numbers.
Use appropriate quantitative, qualitative, comparative, and spatial methods to identify patterns, gaps, relationships, and limitations.
04 / TRANSLATE
Give decision-makers something they can use.
Organize the deliverable around findings, uncertainty, implications, and next steps—not pages of descriptive output.
Services
Small, bounded analytical engagements.
Transparent ranges make it easier to determine whether the question merits a modest research engagement before anyone builds a giant scope of work.
Flagship entry
Decision Memo
$1,500–$3,000
Answer one important policy, management, planning, or community question.
- Targeted existing/public-data analysis
- Relevant peers or benchmarks
- Concise evidence review where useful
- Maps or spatial analysis where useful
- Findings, limitations, implications
- Written memo + leadership briefing
Data & measurement
Data Diagnostic
$2,000–$4,000
Find out what your administrative, survey, or program data can—and cannot—tell you.
- Data inventory and quality assessment
- Cleaning and reconciliation
- Exploratory analysis
- Missing/unreliable measure identification
- KPI and collection recommendations
- Reproducible workflow where appropriate
Programs
Focused Program Evaluation
$4,000–$10,000
Learn what is being implemented, what evidence of results exists, and what should be measured next.
- Evaluation questions / logic model
- Implementation or process assessment
- Outcome indicators
- Administrative-data analysis
- Surveys or limited interviews where appropriate
- Findings + practical recommendations
Larger or recurring analytical support is scoped separately after an initial engagement.
Public data
Part of the toolkit—not the product.
Census, household microdata, labor-market, housing, commuting, geographic, and other public sources can add critical context. We integrate them when they improve the answer rather than producing generic profiles simply because the data exist.
Where?
Where within the community is the pattern concentrated or changing?
Unusual?
Is the result unusual compared with genuinely comparable jurisdictions?
For whom?
Which household, demographic, workforce, or housing characteristics help explain it?
Fit
Designed for the analytical gap.
Sometimes the most useful thing a small research shop can say is that you do not need one.
Community Analytics is a good fit when…
- The question matters but does not justify a large consulting engagement.
- Staff have data but limited analytical capacity or time.
- Several evidence sources need to be reconciled.
- Leadership wants an independent analysis.
- A grant, board, council, or funder requires stronger evidence.
- You need to know what existing data can support before investing in something larger.
Probably not the right fit when…
- You only need publicly available demographic statistics. Excellent free tools already exist.
- You need a large-scale comprehensive or strategic planning process.
- You require a legally mandated audit or specialized engineering analysis.
- The project requires causal claims the available design and evidence cannot support.
Examples
Evidence of reasoning, not a gallery of charts.
These examples show the kinds of questions the practice is designed to answer. They do not imply past corporate engagements by Community Analytics.
Community change
What kind of growth is Seguin actually experiencing?
Move beyond a citywide growth rate to ask who is driving change, where it is occurring, how housing and workforce patterns align with it, and what distinguishes the city from useful peers.
Demonstration analysis — in developmentProgram data
What can fragmented service records actually tell management?
Determine which records can be reconciled, which outcomes can be measured credibly, what patterns are already visible, and what changes would make future evaluation stronger.
Illustrative engagement typeEvaluation
Is the program being implemented as intended—and what evidence exists of results?
Move from question to evidence to analysis to finding to management implication, while keeping claims proportionate to the available design.
Illustrative engagement typePrinciples
Research discipline without consulting-firm theater.
No proprietary black box. When appropriate, analyses are built in reproducible workflows so findings can be traced from source data to conclusion.
01
Proportionate
Not every analytical question requires a six-figure study.
02
Independent
The analysis begins with the question and evidence—not a predetermined recommendation.
03
Defensible
Sources, assumptions, methods, uncertainty, and limitations are documented.
04
Usable
Reports are written for decision-makers, not analysts.
About
Research expertise without the consulting-firm overhead.
Community Analytics is led by Branco Ponomariov, Ph.D., an associate professor of public administration with experience conducting applied research and evaluation for public-sector and community organizations.
About the practicePublic administrationPolicy, management, budgeting, organizations, and local government.
Applied researchResearch design, quantitative analysis, surveys, administrative data, and spatial analysis.
EvaluationProgram implementation, outcomes, measurement systems, and performance indicators.
PurposeProjects too substantive for a dashboard or quick staff assignment, but too bounded to justify a large consulting engagement.
Start here
What are you trying to figure out?
You do not need a finished scope. Send the question, the decision it relates to, what evidence you currently have, and any deadline. We can determine whether a small analytical engagement is appropriate.
Discuss the question
Not sure whether the project is feasible? Determining what the available evidence can support is often the first step.