Minnesota Community Health Workers Alliance, the statewide voice for community health workers, is committed to advancing the profession through advocacy, education, and workforce development. The organization maintains Minnesota’s Community Health Worker Registry, which helps connect, support, and represent community health workers (CHW) across the state. Much of this work is funded through grants from the Minnesota Department of Health.
Although Software for Good was hired to assess the technology supporting the MNCHW Registry, it quickly became clear that the organization needed a stronger data foundation to support reporting, operations, and future growth. The registry had evolved into a complex ecosystem with dozens of WordPress plugins and several disconnected systems. Member information lived in multiple places, reporting required significant manual effort, and staff lacked confidence that they were working from accurate, consistent data.
The underlying issue? The organization had no shared data model, governance approach, or clear ownership for maintaining critical information. To address this, Software for Good built on discovery work already completed by the Alliance and partnered with its staff and board leadership to define a path forward.
Through collaborative working sessions, Software for Good documented the current landscape, identified gaps, and developed strategic recommendations. The resulting roadmap begins by establishing a trusted data foundation and clear ownership, then expands into improved registry functionality, reporting, and analytics over time. Each phase aligns with the Alliance’s size, capacity, and grant-funded operating model. Our strategy also recommends ongoing research with community health workers and employers to ensure future investments continue to reflect the needs of the people the registry serves.
Because of this work, the Alliance now has a clear, actionable plan to strengthen its technology and data systems, as well as organizational alignment on where to invest next.