Azavea’s Summer of Maps is Helping Nonprofits With Free GIS Work Again

Nonprofits nationwide can now submit an application to be considered for the pro bono geospatial data analysis projects done by fellows in Azavea’s Summer of Maps program.

From June to August, the selected nonprofit organizations will receive pro bono services from a skilled student GIS analyst who will help geographically analyze data provided by the nonprofit, find new ways to visualize it, and combine it with other demographic and geographic data. Nonprofits can use the visualizations and maps to support new initiatives or make a case to prospective funders.

One successful project, by Lena Ferguson, one of the 2013 fellows, helped a nonprofit receive a large sum of money from City Council.

“Our projects have been hugely successful for some of our nonprofit partners — the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children received a $1,000,000 grant from the City of Philadelphia based off the work that our fellow completed looking at access to quality child care,” said Daniel McGlone, one of this year’s mentors for the program.

As a mentor, McGlone’s role is to facilitate a successful project throughout the course of the summer, as well as provide a fellow with the training and knowledge necessary to complete the project with a sense of ownership.

Another project to come out of Summer of Maps was 2013 fellow Tyler Dahlberg’s (now current Azavea employee) examination of 11,000 bike thefts over six years, 10,000 crashes over five years, and investigation how to measure bicycle ‘activity’ across Philadelphia using these data sets and others.

“We got a lot of press for the project which raised awareness about bicycle theft and dangerous, high-crash intersections,” McGlone said.

Nonprofit organizations have until February 8 to submit their application at http://www.summerofmaps.com. Student applications will run from February 27 to March 15.

Image via Azavea