Community Mapping

Oct 1, 2011 | Community Outreach, Program Planning & Evaluation, Resources

If your organization asks where the underserved in your area live, work, or congregate, could you answer “yes” with confidence? Knowing where your target population lives, works, and congregates helps you focus and fine-tune your outreach program. Having visually striking proof that your program is truly serving the community lets others easily see the value of your work. Online applications now make it easier than ever to create and maintain a community map—a tool to track the geographical distribution of the underserved in your community along with your outreach efforts.

What is Community Mapping?
Community mapping is a process of creating maps to gain a visual representation of community-specific data organized by geography. For example, it is possible to track where you or other staff has performed outreach, or plan to perform outreach, by marking these sites on your community map. You can also track where your community needs you to be, allowing you to answer the question “where are the underserved individuals in my service area?”

Why Do Community Mapping?
Many outreach programs can use community mapping to identify client housing areas, potential transportation barriers (such as a neighborhoods with little or no accessible bus lines), and to target and track prime outreach sites. Visually presenting this data is especially useful because: (1) it is easier to identify and analyze patterns based on location; and, (2) it provides a visual way of quickly and vividly communicating those patterns to a broad audience. Community mapping can make a strong case for critically needed social services, increased or better use of outreach funding, or a refocusing of outreach activities (such as shifting where you perform outreach to reach those who are most underserved).

When Should Community Mapping Be Done?
Ideally, you should always be updating your community map to show the most current information available to you. Because this is not always possible, HOP recommends updating your community map, or creating an entirely new community map, during slow points throughout the year. Additionally, if you are conducting a community needs assessment, consider simultaneously creating, overhauling, or revising your program’s community map. Because these tools inform each other, developing both at the same time streamlines your efforts.

The Steps of Community Mapping
Now that you know what community mapping is, why you should do it, and when, let us consider the five key stages to implementing and using a community map:

  1. Determine key information that your map should include. For example, are you looking to map areas where the majority of you target population lives, works, congregates? Do you want to identify partner agencies? Do you want to plot areas in your service region that have a high concentration of food insecurity? Asking yourself questions such as these will help you collect the most useful information for your program.
  1. Determine the appropriate geographical scope to be covered in the process (e.g., countywide, statewide, organizational service area).
  1. Collect data (e.g., existing U.S. census data, primary research data from focus groups, survey information you have collected in the past).
  1. Create maps (e.g., maps with locations of client housing and community assets such as churches, social clubs, local grocery stores, laundromats).
  1. Use your community to advocate for community health and well-being by promoting a more efficient use of community resources (e.g., if your mapping project reveals a patient population living adjacent to pesticide-laden fields, advocate for your organization to prioritize pesticide safety trainings).

How to Make Your Map
The Internet makes it is easier than ever to create and keep your community map current. Google Maps represents an online application designed to efficiently capture, manage, analyze, and display all kinds of geographically referenced information. If you or other staff does not have easy internet access, you can also use a wall map. To make your community map, follow these steps:

  • Locate geographical map (either physical or on the internet): Large county geographical wall maps should be readily available from the Department of Transportation for a minimal cost. These maps provide a detailed visual overview of your service area. You can also use Google maps to access a web-based map of your service area.
  • Highlight sites where your target population congregates: Using pushpins, flags, color-coded pegs, or stickers draw attention to important sites and outreach areas with pushpins, or stickers. If you are using a Google map, use the feature that allows you to pinpoint sites or mark off regions.
  • Highlight outreach program activities: You may want to incorporate specific elements of your outreach program onto your geographical wall map, like using different colored flags or dots to represent first-time visits versus follow-ups. If you are using a Google map, you can also edit the shape, color, and descriptions of your markers.

Why Use Google Maps For Community Mapping?
Google maps is free and easy to use, allowing you to quickly begin your community mapping project. For technical instructions on how to start, please refer to the end of the article. A Google map has the following features:

  • You can share and have others edit the map, allowing for multiple people to edit and update the map.
  • You can color code and change the icons you use to mark locations or places of interest, for example sites where your target population congregates or important healthcare access points.
  • You can color code and edit shapes to mark off regions of interest, for instance a neighborhood where you want to provide outreach services.
  • You can get driving, walking, and public transport directions between important outreach locations.
  • You can zoom in and out of the map and view the map via satellite and in a 3D view though Google Earth.
  • You can print, send, and link the map as well as keep a comment log.

How To Start Using Google Maps:

  1. Open Google maps. Go to maps.google.com.
  2. Click on My Maps.
  3. Click Create New Map.
  4. You will need to sign-in with a Google account.
  5. Enter a title and description for your map into the appropriate fields.
  6. You can decide to make the map public or unlisted. Public maps are published in search results and available for anyone on the internet to see.
  7. Click the Save button when you are done.
  8. You can create site makers on your map to indicate important locations of interest by clicking on the balloon icon.
    1. Enter a title and description of your site marker and click OK.
    2. You can also edit the color and shape of the marker by clicking on the balloon icon within the pop-up bubble.
    3. You can also mark off regions on your map by clicking on the drop-down arrow within the line icon.
      1. Click on the draw a shape option.
      2. Enter a title and description of your site marker and click OK.
      3. You can also edit the color and shape of the region by clicking on the box icon within the pop-up bubble.

In conclusion, community mapping for outreach purposes represents an effective and relatively easy way to make sure you are adequately responding to the needs of your community. Developing a community map to document your work may also increase the sustainability of your program, allowing others to recognize and understand the importance of outreach.