Caritas Dashboard: Prototype Insights, Dokumentation und Reporting

The counseling centers Social Welfare NGOs, such as Caritas, support people affected by poverty. In the course of these interactions, data is generated that has so far been scarcely used systematically. At the same time, there is great potential to make a significant contribution to more effective support processes through systematic data usage. A technically functional dashboard prototype illustrating the various activities within the Caritas Switzerland network can help spark discussions about how data from client interactions might be evaluated and used in day-to-day operations—both by Caritas Switzerland and especially by regional offices like Caritas Basel. A research team from the NRP 80 project of the Swiss National Science Foundation, supported by an “Innovation Cheque” (from Innosuisse – the Swiss Innovation Agency) and through participation in “Hack4Social Good 2024,” developed such a prototype. This design was further refined during a sprint in December 2024. Using this prototype, the opportunities and challenges of targeted data usage by Caritas can be highlighted—laying the foundation for further discussions on systematic data utilization.