(This is a re-post of a post that originally appeared in Polis Center’s blog, posted May 11, 2012)

Last week I attended the 2012 Indiana GIS Conference, hosted by the Indiana Geographic Information Council (IGIC). As the GIS coordinating body in Indiana, IGIC provides education and technical and policy guidance. I particularly enjoyed the keynote address this year, “Storytelling with Maps,” given by Allen Carroll, program manager of ArcGIS Online at Esri.

Allen used his personal ArcGIS Online website to introduce himself and describe key milestones in his life’s journey using a customized map and geographically referenced contextual content. The storytelling began with the map and photos of his house and neighborhood on the north side of Indianapolis, continued to highlight his alma mater Shortridge High School, and then moved through various places related to his work at National Geographic and Esri in Redlands.

According to Esri’s website, “Story maps use the concepts and tools of geography to tell stories about the world. They combine intelligent Web maps with text, multimedia content, and intuitive user experiences to inform, educate, entertain, and inspire people about a wide variety of topics. Most story maps are designed for non-technical audiences.” The website includes additional documentation of best practices and templates which use distinct storytelling techniques.

I have been involved with GIS for over 30 years and believe that the industry has matured to the point that people like me, interested in data with limited cartographic and technical skills, can use the rich (no-cost) content of web GIS to communicate and create meaningful content.  Indiana is also extending IndianaMAP by exposing over 200 services to ArcGIS online with map galleries to help novice users like me create maps to convey stories.

Check out this example of a story map featured in Esri’s Storytelling with Maps Gallery.

By David J. Bodenhamer, Executive Director, The Polis Center

This is a re-post of the post that originally appeared on Polis Center’s Blog on April 27, 2012

Cartographer Dennis Wood once noted that maps “point to a world we might know,” as well as to a world we might have once known. It is part of the fascination and power of maps.  And, Wood argues, we live in an age of maps: more than 99.9 percent of all maps that have ever existed were made within the past 100 years. They have become so commonplace that we scarcely notice them: we see them continually on our mobile devices, on weather forecasts, or when we search for a business on Google or Bing, which asks whether we want directions to it. It is also increasingly easy to make maps.  For simple maps, we can use a variety of Web-based mapping tools or we can make quite complex maps with powerful software, such as we use at Polis.

But we often attribute to maps an objectivity they in fact do not have.  All maps represent reality, but whose reality do they represent?  Much of the data we map in fact reflects official efforts to keep track of events or conditions, and this information is important to good government. We need to know where potholes exist or where crime occurs or where schools and clinics exist.  But crime maps, to use one example, don’t tell us much, if anything, about whether residents perceive their neighborhood as safe.  A map of clinics and churches and schools doesn’t reveal whether the assets of an area in fact serve the needs of residents. Map-making means paying attention only to the thing being mapped.  This information may be essential but usually it isn’t sufficient to understand our world fully because the places where we live exist also in memories and perceptions and values that cannot easily be counted or even located with the precision demanded by the map’s symbology.

At Polis we work with maps every day, and we have developed the means by which people can create their own maps for their own purposes, as, for instance, in SAVI, the comprehensive community information system we manage. But we are aware that making maps from official data is not enough, so we are working on ways to allow anyone to add information that moves us beyond numbers to a more complete understanding of our communities.  Often called neogeography, this approach invites volunteered or user-generated information as a way of enhancing our understanding of places and events.  At times, this information may be more accurate and even more timely than official data, such as when cell phone reports and pictures of flooding in the Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina far outpaced the data sent by first responders.  We also are considering how to include this volunteered information in our work with federal and state emergency managers.  And we are exploring how to create dynamic “deep maps” that embody all the ways we know a place and that will let us see our communities in all their rich diversity and not simply as we capture them in our official records.  In all these ways, we are working to develop the information and collaborations that, in faithfulness to our word mark, help us “bring things into perspective.”

(This is a re-post of a post that originally appeared in Polis Center’s blog, posted April 18, 2012)

While the idea of “collective impact” has been around for a long time, it has in recent years gathered new recognition as a movement all its own.  The term seems to have been coined in 2010 by John Kania and Mark Kramer of FSG, a nonprofit consulting firm.  Learn more about their take on collective impact in their article.

Collective impact is the idea that large social problems require broad cross-sector coordination rather than a fragmented approach of many organizations with many separate programs all striving towards a common goal.  Governments and private funders seem to be growing more reluctant to fund “yet another program” and are looking for alternatives that can lead to more observable, meaningful, and measurable outcomes.  Collective impact may well be that alternative.

No single organization is responsible for, nor can fix, any major social issue; yet, funders have for years followed a common model of funding that leads competing organizations to propose short-term, isolated programs.  Collective impact requires a longer-term vision and commitment to affect large-scale social change.

This isn’t to say that there is no room for isolated programs.  Some isolated programs have had great success in improving a particular issue— Kania & Kramer give the examples of funding college scholarships or building a hospital—but those tend to be issues with primarily technical hurdles.

Collective impact goes beyond standard collaborations between a few organizations.  It requires a large-scale, systemic approach that focuses on relationships among organizations that share common objectives.  Kania & Kramer give five conditions of collective success.

1. Common agenda
2. Shared measurement system
3. Mutually reinforcing activities
4. Continuous communication
5. Backbone support organizations

A good local example of collective impact is IUPUI’sTalent Alliance, which brings together dozens of local agencies with the common goal of producing a highly educated and competitive workforce by maximizing the impact of many different organizations and programs.

The Talent Alliance was partly inspired by the STRIVE partnership in Cincinnati, Ohio led by Jeff Edmondson.

Remember that there are hurdles to overcome to successfully implement collective impact.  Collective impact doesn’t mean free, it’s still something that needs to be funded, and managing it requires a dedicated staff separate from the participating organizations.  Also, individual agencies need to let go of some of their individual agendas.  But if these and other hurdles can be overcome, what an impact it could make!

2010 Diversity Index

In 2008 IUPUI announced the appointment of Dr. Kenneth Durgan as Chancellor for Diversity, followed by the creation of the IUPUI Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.  One of the responsibilities of the office is to measure and report how historically underrepresented groups fare in the faculty and student communities. This push by the university is an example of how the issue of diversity is increasing in priority on many levels of public life.  More people are catching on to the ideas of making direct efforts to include diverse groups in a place or organization and celebrating the different voices represented.

When measuring racial/ethnic diversity of a population, we usually use a demographic snapshot such as a pie chart showing proportions of each group represented.  Our new report, the first in a series on demographics, offers a few more ways to look at diversity and how it has changed over the past two decades.  Focusing on Marion County, Indiana, we drill down to the neighborhood level so we have a clear picture of how the numbers vary across the area.  We use the Diversity Index to easily visualize where the balance between racial and ethnic groups is more even or uneven.  We also use historical snapshots over a 20-year period showing how the footprint of high minority areas has changed and how diversity (using the index) has changed.  For those of you with connections to Marion County, we think the report will help you get to know the city.  Everyone interested in diversity should check it out, especially if you’re looking for new ways to think about demographic changes in your community.  Let us know if our report includes your ideas of diversity, and if not, how you would describe the subject?

Have you registered for the Indiana Nonprofit Capacity Building Conference yet? Have you already registered but have some questions?

If you answered yes to either of these or maybe don’t even know what the conference is about, we’ll answer all of your questions in a live Twitter chat on Monday, September 19 at noon EDT. Simply log in to Twitter and follow the hash tag #INNPC11. The chat will be moderated by our own Sharon Kandris.

Whether you need to be pointed to the sessions that best serve you, want to tell us about your experience in the past or have any questions, we’ll answer them all for you, in real-time. And if you still haven’t registered for the conference, Monday’s your last chance. (Don’t worry, we’ll send you the link!)

Hope to see you on Twitter!

By Jessica White, president, Jessica White Associates

We hear a lot about sustainability these days. Some nonprofits are ramping up their earned revenue options to ensure sustainability. Others are being asked by funders to assess their potential to remain sustainable. Still others have already determined they can’t be sustainable and are looking for ways to merge before having to close their doors. Wherever your organization is in the “sustainability spectrum,” you need good solid information to help you make those decisions.

That’s where evaluation comes into play.

All of us have been asked to evaluate our programs. Some funders even require formal evaluations to determine impact. We know the terms “inputs” and “outcomes.” We’ve developed matrices to evaluate each program.

But how often do we use the same type of thinking on our agency as a whole? How often do we measure the profitability or the impact of our organization? General operating dollars are exceedingly hard to find, so finding the best allocation of time and resources to accomplish your organization’s mission is fundamental. Programmatic impact and financial viability are what make nonprofits sustainable.

So how does this apply to you? Come to the Nonprofit Evaluation Workshop,  Septmeber 28 at 3:10 p.m. at the 2011 Indiana Nonprofit Capacity Building Conference to learn the basic components you should consider when evaluating your organization and how local nonprofits have used these techniques to improve their organization’s sustainability.

For the next few weeks we’ll be talking about the Indiana Nonprofit Capacity Building Conference, which we are pleased to be co-hosting with the IUPUI Solution Center. The conference takes place on September 28 from 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. at the IUPUI Campus Center.

In addition to useful sessions, covering topics from legal advice to grant writing and social media, Tarik Glenn, will deliver the keynote address. Glenn is a three time Pro-bowl offensive Lineman retired from the Indianapolis Colts and co-founder and chair of the advisory council of D.R.E.A.M. Alive, Inc.

We’ll be posting guest blogs from sponsors, partners, presenters, and attendees from the previous years. If you’re interested in guest blogging, contact me at skandris@iupui.edu and we’ll send you some guest blog guidelines.

Hope to see you at the conference.

Welcome to the SAVI Blog!  In these blog posts, we share stories about how others have benefited from SAVI’s community data, highlight interesting findings from our data analysis, provide tips for how to use the website or data, and discuss the impact of information technologies on communities.

We are excited about the new generation website recently launched at www.savi.org and plan to use this blog to help you find ways to benefit from it.

Please contribute your thoughts.  We look forward to an interesting dialogue about important issues impacting our communities.

Sharon Kandris, SAVI Director