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HungerMaps
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
35.1 mil Americans face hunger and food insecurity. HungerMaps fuses new visualization and collaborative technology with the wisdom of advocates, transforming local data into a national portrait of needs and resources as the basis for direct action.
Supporting organization:
New York City Coalition Against Hunger (advisory role only)
URL:
http://www.hungermaps.org
City:
New York
State/Region:
New York
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
HungerMaps.org provides immediate, concrete outputs for users and focuses the potential of emerging Web2.0 technologies on a defined, solvable social issue.
Hunger and food insecurity continue to affect 35.1 million Americans annually. Although the anti-hunger movement is strong and growing, it lacks the shared data and collaborative tools necessary to connect local efforts into a truly nationwide campaign to end hunger. HungerMaps addresses this problem by fusing new data visualization and collaborative technologies with the wisdom of local advocates.
At the heart of HungerMaps lies a free, user-friendly GIS mapping interface that enables registered users to upload local data and create interactive online maps on-the-fly. Users can then share their maps and datasets through email, widgets and – to our knowledge – the first software capable of turning live Google mashups into print-worthy PDFs.
Enabling anti-hunger advocates to visualize their data is the first step. HungerMaps has already mapped local data from users in Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Washington and the District of Columbia. As we grow, HungerMaps plans to collaborate with users to transform collected information into a national portrait of hunger needs and resources as the basis for direct action.
HungerMaps aims to break the habit of late technology adoption among nonprofits and lead the wave of “best in class” online map creation and presentation. HungerMaps was created by a national team including a former Microsoft programmer from Seattle, a management consultant in Chicago, and a program director at an anti-hunger organization in New York City. HungerMaps was modeled as the public extension of a GIS project created by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and celebrated by both TechSoup.org and the Non-Profit Times.
Sustainability (financial) model:
HungerMaps operates as a non-profit enterprise, funded partially with fees from delivery of software and professional services, and partially through grants and donations. Our budget is described in terms of hardware, software, and resources:
- Hardware. Our production and development environments require web servers, database servers, and internet connectivity.
- Software. Software costs are controlled through use of open source development and deployment tools, use of publicly available data, and use of public APIs. Strategic acquisition of proprietary data will occur to enhance our services where appropriate.
- Resources. Resources required to maintain and enhance our core services will include issue experts, software developers, and data architects. Resources required for delivery of professional services will be contracted on a project basis.
HungerMaps is focused on three revenue streams:
- Software as a Service, provided by subscription to clients. Our software offerings include hosted client portals and information management tools.
- Professional Services, provided on a project basis to clients. Our professional services include strategy consulting, software implementation, and support.
- Grants and Donations. Startup capital was provided by the founders. Grants and donations will provide capital to underwrite enhancement of our core product.
Potential obstacles:
- HungerMaps is currently a small, all-volunteer enterprise. Our projected growth in the coming year will put new strains on our capacity as volunteers, and demand the development of new products and unanticipated functions. We are planning to raise capital to meet our increased demand and allow us greater flexibility to work with our user audience and the site itself.
- HungerMaps.org's GIS offerings currently depend on the Google Maps API remaining open and usable. Future changes in the API or terms of service would necessitate increased effort to create work-arounds.
Resource Needs:
In order to reach anti-hunger advocates in all 50 states and provide them with "best in class" technology tools, HungerMaps will need to increase capacity in the following areas:
- Production Environment: bandwidth, processing, and storage needs will increase in proportion to demand for our core product and software services.
- Core Product Development: we will preserve momentum through continuous improvement of our core product to meet the needs of our expanding audience.
- Promotion: issue experts need outreach materials and travel budget to increase exposure to potential clients.
Key Milestones:
In the next 90 days, HungerMaps plans to release v0.2 and v0.3 of HungerMaps.org, which will including the following features:
- A simplified map creation wizard
- A public, extensible data sharing model
* ex. Information: [Income Level by ZIP in Kings County] Provider [City of New York Public Affairs]
* ex. Information: [Spanish Language Soup Kitchens Houston] Provider [San Andreas Co-op] - Map overlays including Census and local demographic data
- New fields for datapoints, including phone numbers and hours of operation
- Custom markers
- Map hosting on other sites via widgets
We also hope to double the number of states where HungerMaps has a user presence.
Our long-term goals include a greater focus on collaborative tools, increased map provider choice (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) and the development of template materials that can be used for other issue-based causes.
Project Summary:
35.1 million Americans face hunger and food insecurity annually. HungerMaps.org addresses this problem by fusing new data visualization and collaborative technologies with the wisdom of local advocates. HungerMaps uses ground-breaking GIS technology to help the educate the public about the hunger problem and aid anti-hunger advocates in creating and sharing information. Through user collaboration and best-in-class mapping tools, HungerMaps will transform this collected information into a national portrait of hunger needs and resources as the basis for direct action.
Comments
Hunger Maps will be an
Hunger Maps will be an AMAZING resource for food-bankers. The ability to strategically map the locations of emergency food providers in a simple, easy and publically accessible location promises to make this a website I will use on a regular basis. The issue of hunger is often neglected on a policy level in the US. Instead, folks believe we can solve the problem with cans of food and donations. This is NOT the case. Hunger will only be solved when we as a society refuse to allow our governments to disadvantage particular populations for their own benefit. To solve hunger we need to take back government. Hunger Maps will give us one small piece of that puzzle by allowing organizations to strategically think about the best ways to use the resources they do have. Please support this website innovation!
Thanks for the testimony - HungerMaps
Thanks Eric -
Your testimony as one of the hundreds of grassroots providers facing this huge, yet solvable issue on a daily basis means a lot to us.
As a fellow anti-hunger advocate, I should also say that your attitude about the role of charitable donations and food banks in solving hunger is very welcome. This is definitely one of the key issues that we hope our maps will illuminate for the public and other advocates.
Thanks for your vote!
jc, HungerMaps
Us vs. Google's "My Maps"
We've received inquiries asking for our response to Google's 4/5 announcement of My Maps, a customizable mapping interface built around Google Maps.
While My Maps did take us (and the rest of the GIS industry) by surprise, we're confident it won't affect our plans.
Here's why:
In sum, the value of HungerMaps is in helping anti-hunger organizations use GIS to accomplish their missions more effectively. Google's new investment in their mapping technologies is a signal that they share our feeling that there are huge opportunities out there for GIS.