Enabling Data-Driven Innovation in the Third Sector: A Framework for Leveraging Big Data

As digital transformation reshapes sectors worldwide, nonprofit and third sector organizations face increasing pressure to leverage data for impact, accountability, and innovation. This study investigates the factors influencing the adoption, maturity, and sustainability of data-driven approaches in third sector organizations, including nonprofits, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and social enterprises. The primary contribution of this work is a comprehensive, multi-pillar framework for data-driven innovation in the third sector, extended with a sixth pillar-Impact Evaluation and Sustainability to institutionalize long-term outcome tracking and scalable practices. The study also provides a cross-case synthesis of three representative domains: education (EdNet), healthcare (MIMIC-Extract), and humanitarian response (HUMVI), demonstrating how theoretical principles translate into actionable implementation strategies across diverse organizational contexts. Key results highlight that organizations achieving alignment across vision, infrastructure, data governance, experimentation, stakeholder engagement, and impact perform more effectively. Nevertheless, valuation consistently s