The ability to translate large data sets into an easily understandable format that educates, motivates, and drives people to action would be an incredibly valuable resource advocates and elected officials. We believe that GIS mapping (via Google Earth and Google Maps mashups) can be such a resource, and that it will change the way that citizens understand and take action on all manner of complex social problems including urban planning, environmental justice, and racial/ethnic disparities.

The problem is that GIS is expensive and technologically difficult, placing it well beyond the capabilities of most nonprofits.

In conjunction with partners, our project would make the initial, upfront investment to develop a simple, easy to use GIS resource that would be open to anyone. We believe that this initial investment can produce a tool that will vastly lower costs across the board, and make GIS a (financially and technically) realistic resource for low to medium budget nonprofits and cash-strapped city governments.

We have already created a test case for what this might look like - and used it in our own work - at www.healthcarethatworks.org. With community forums and a letter writing tool built into the site, Health Care That Works offers a glimpse of how GIS technology and the social web can be used to effectively mobilize communities to action and create change at the municipal and state level.

Our project will make this effort replicable by hundreds of non profits across the country.