The New York City Coalition Against Hunger used Google Maps to help local soup kitchens reduce duplicated efforts and to better target limited resources. In TechSoup's article
Mapping an End to Hunger in New York City, learn how mapping software can help your nonprofit, too.
How might mapping software help your organization further its mission? Have questions about Google Maps? Already tried it out and have feedback? Share your ideas and questions here.
Our organization provides health care services to people who are eligible for a nursing home, but prefer to remain in their homes. As such, we have delivery drivers and home health aides and nurses, etc that must navigate to participant's homes on a literal daily basis.
On our intranet, we have participant profile pages that contain relevent information on the participant, including, of course, address. Logically, for the convenience of all of the people visiting that participant, we have incorported both Yahoo maps and Mapquest maps, which are brought up with a click of a button. Some people prefer the Yahoo approach, and some prefer the Mapquest version. We provide both.
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. People who are not the most computer literate individuals have no problem bringing up the directions and printing them out. It has become a regular part of their routine.
The coding portion of the implementation took less than about 10 minutes. You pass the variables for street address, city, state, and zip code and that is about it.
In terms of "bang for the buck", the minimal coding time that it took to implement was a pitance compared to the amount of time our staff would spend seeking out directions on their own.
I will visit the Google Maps solution soon, and see if there is a compelling reason to add that functionality to the site as well.
This is a great demonstration of how maps can be used to draw attention to an entire universe of charities in a geographic area, such as soup kitchents.
In the Program Locator and Tutor/Mentor Institute sections of http://msg.uc.iupui.edu/TMC/html/index.php you can see how the Tutor/Mentor Connection is using GIS to support an entire universe of volunteer based tutor/mentor programs.
In the LINKS section of the T/MC site is a sub section on knowledge management, decision support and GIS. I encourage anyone who is using a GIS for similar purposes to post your link in that site, and then launch discussions, such as this where we can talk to each other about the challenges of building and maintaining this type of a service.
I'm sure the Coalition Against Hunger knows that building the GIS is just one of their challenges. Building and maintaining the database of programs is an equally large challenge, as is generating public awareness so a growing number of people visit and use the site every day.
Unless you have a huge operating budget, which my organization does not have, this requires quite a bit of creativity and collaboration.
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
If you link to any of the mapping sources listed above, or any other thrid party service such as weather.com, it is very important that you check the links often. A broken link is a great way to frustrate a visitor into leaving your site and not coming back. Be sure to check them every time you update that page or at least once a month.
I just learned of another mapping service called
Platial, a collaborative, web-based atlas that allows users to create, manage and share custom maps, creating communities of interest around the places that matter to them. (Source: Omidyar.net)
Joined on 08-09-2004
TechSoup Member
Thanks for the post on the Platial website. It's really easy to use and in just over an hour I've started a map of runaway and homeless youth programs in Michigan that's already got four sites on it with contact information for each site. This is great and easy and free. Thanks again.
Joined on 02-26-2004
TechSoup Member
I added this functionality to the
Somerville Open Studios webiste using the tools of a company called
ZeeMaps.
It was easy to setup, tech support was responsive, and they are now offering it free of charge. I looked at a few other small co.'s that had written code to hook into Google's API; the folks at ZeeMaps had key functionality that we required, such as the ability to upload bulk data.
Take a look:
SOS Map
For what it's worth,
here are some cool examples of how others have used Google Maps.
Joined on 06-29-2007
TechSoup Member
We are in the middle of creating a map for our website at Metro Meals on Wheels.
Those that would like to volunteer or receive meals need to find out which of our 41 programs they need to contact. (the programs are divided up geographically - but are not divided by a specific kind of border, ie. counties, zip codes, it is quite random)
I am making a map where they type in their address, and the marker pops up in one of the 41 color coded program areas with the programs' contact info. I haven't seen anyone use google maps in this way before, but i think it will work splendidly
Joined on 01-21-2005
St. George, Utah
I've started using Google Maps on our website to allow people to see how accessible businesses in southern Utah are to those with disabilities. You can see it http://www.rrci.org/areamaps Just select a county, then a city, then a category, and then the marker for a business. Still rough and I'm still putting in the data, but it's more accessible and easier to use then the booklet we had.
Joined on 01-05-2004
TechSoup Member
We've started using Google Maps for Special Olympics Wisconsin to display our areas, or regions of the state. That way we can determine quickly who best to assist a potential donor, volunteer or athlete. Our map is here: http://tinyurl.com/22v9a4
Our area boundaries are based on county. I found a map of Wisconsin counties on this Web site: http://www.gearthhacks.com/ I was able to open the file in Google Earth, export a KML file for Google Maps, open it there and trace the counties for our Area map.
Google Earth & Google Maps don't seem to be entirely compatible, but it did the trick for my purposes.
Cheers,
Andrea Wetzel
Special Olympics Wisconsin
www.specialolympicswisconsin.org
Joined on 12-12-2006
TechSoup Member
For a quick customized map try the Google Gadget and Community Walk mashup information at http://tinyurl.com/2jyl69 . For more detailed maps linked to a data set try http://simile.mit.edu/exhibit/
Joined on 03-21-2006
TechSoup Member
I have added a google map to my organization's Web site in order to show where our program locations are in New York City. Because people wanting to volunteer with us may want to find a place close to their work or home, this map offers a quite visual of our program locations. That map is located here: http://www.intlcenter.org/Collaborations.htm
A second, more simple, google map is located on our directions page: http://www.intlcenter.org/directions.html
Joined on 06-29-2007
TechSoup Member
it looks like the Wisconsin Special Olympics and the org. i am with are using the Google mapping technology in the same way, only our programs are not divided by county, but by city, school district, or sometimes, major roads.
I now have the map created but do not know how to get it on our website, does anyone have advice on this?
Below is our Map link:
Thanks
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107406532633284745684.0000011295c9f21cb204e&ll=45.099375,-93.12818&spn=0.779389,1.63147&z=9&om=1]
Joined on 12-12-2006
TechSoup Member
Place the following in an html page:
You may have to adjust the width number and height number and you can make the frameborder 0 if you want no border.