PolicyMap is providing NAR's Realtor Property Resource with demographic, economic, cultural and community asset data through our Data API for use in their new RPR website for realtors. Delivery through the API is allowing them to seamlessly integrate data into the Bing maps already in use on their site. To learn more about their offerings, check out their blog http://blog.narrpr.com/

"At Comcast, we're using PolicyMap to better inform our HR policies. We've realized that, in order to retain the best staff, we need to make sure that we're connecting our employees to their work locations. On PolicyMap, we can see where our employees live, how close they are to public transit, and how far they are traveling to work, as compared to others in their communities. We can also look at our service areas on PolicyMap to better understand our markets. PolicyMap created customized views for us that enable us to, very quickly and easily, slice information about our employees and our markets in interesting and useful ways." Jay Chang, Director, Analytics, Compensation Center of Expertise, Comcast

The tool will provide information on the economic, social, and environmental performance of investments. These three dimensions are often referred to as the triple bottom line or TBL. The triple bottom line term originated in the corporate sector as a way to talk about the economic, social, and environmental value that is added or destroyed with an investment. Triple bottom line accounting can provide a more accurate picture of the real bottom line, the full range of benefits and costs associated with an investment. This more complete account of a project's returns can help decision-makers assess and prioritize investments.

To facilitate responsiveness to on-the-ground realities, the tool's design is being informed by practitioners and policymakers via interviews, focus groups, and a survey. The tool is being developed by an interdisciplinary team and includes an advisory council with expertise in diverse aspects of economic development and the triple bottom line.

To learn more about this project, check out the press release on our blog.

Other interactive maps or widgets in use by the Federal Reserve can be seen here:

http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/colorado-profile.cfm
http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/kansas-profile.cfm
http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/missouri-profile.cfm
http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/nebraska-profile.cfm
http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/newmexico-profile.cfm
http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/oklahoma-profile.cfm
http://www.kansascityfed.org/community/wyoming-profile.cfm

University libraries like the University of Pennsylvania subscribe to provide their library users with all of the tools and data available in PolicyMap.

"I've found that PolicyMap is a very effective tool in transforming students from research consumers to research producers. In the past, my introductory research class students became discouraged before they could produce results. I asked students to use PolicyMap to tell me some distinctive qualities of their own neighborhood, they were on the site and producing maps and analyses very quickly."
Mark Stern, Professor of Social Welfare and History; Co-Director, Urban Studies program University of Pennsylvania

This bulk purchase gives the Foundation's grantees access to all of the data and functionality in PolicyMap and allows them to send us data for upload. Additionally, it gives the Foundation a single place for seeing where and how all of their investment across the country has been directed.

"Mercy Portfolio Services recently created Community Central, a web-based integrated platform focused on organizing and restructuring data and document management for HUD's Neighborhood Stabilization Program. We aimed to offer our subscribers the best tools available for data collection and reporting purposes, and PolicyMap was the obvious choice."

"My advice to anyone thinking about a mapping tool is to get PolicyMap. In Chicago, we have used PolicyMap to upload local RIS data along with our NSP data. We are then able to view this data against historical data and gauge emerging trends in the communities we work in. This has given us a way to develop an in-depth understanding of these communities."
William Goldsmith, President, Mercy Portfolio Services

Mercy Portfolio Services is a subsidiary of Mercy Housing, a national not-for-profit affordable housing organization. Mercy Housing serves families, seniors and people with special needs (formerly homeless, people with HIV/AIDS and the developmentally disabled). Mercy Portfolio Services assists communities across the United States address the economic and housing crises through solutions such as foreclosure purchase, redevelopment, lease purchase options, asset management, land banking, education and resale at affordable prices.

The National Community Stabilization Trust and its online application, REOMatch, facilitates the transfer of foreclosed and abandoned properties from financial institutions all over the country to local housing organizations to promote productive property reuse and neighborhood stability. Using PolicyMap's Data API, REOMatch can now provide interested buyers with information about the neighborhoods in which these properties are located. Their users can, for example, click on a bank-owned REO property and see how many households live in the area or what the vacancy rate is according to the Postal Service.

Foreclosure-Response.org is an online guide to foreclosure prevention and neighborhood stabilization developed and maintained by the Center for Housing Policy, KnowledgePlex, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and the Urban Institute.

PolicyMap was able to work with Foreclosure-Response.org to build interactive maps (or widgets) to help visualize some of the important data provided on the site. Check them out here:

http://www.foreclosure-response.org/maps_and_data/lisc_maps.html
http://www.foreclosure-response.org/maps_and_data/high_cost_maps.html

For the last year, PolicyMap has been working with NeighborWorks, Success Measures to help neighborhood organizations analyze the results of their community surveys geographically. By geocoding survey results, groups can begin to see if households with similar neighborhood opinions are clustered in certain blocks – and if those blocks are somehow different compared to the surrounding area. Pulling from the variety of indicators available in PolicyMap at a block group level, neighborhood organizations can see, for example, which areas have higher concentrations of people under the age of 18, which have aging housing structures, which have higher median incomes and more. PolicyMap's goal has been to give Success Measures a geographic tool for evaluating survey data so they can integrate the results into their decision-making process going forward.

NeighborWorks America is a national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance and training for community-based revitalization efforts. Success Measures, a social enterprise at NeighborWorks America is an innovative, participatory-outcome evaluation approach that engages community stakeholders in the evaluation process and equips them with the tools they need to document outcomes, measure impact and inform change.

The Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program and TRF performed a detailed analysis of supermarket access in 10 metro areas. The results are discussed in a new video, "Getting to Market", as well as in a widget powered by PolicyMap. Watch the video and check out the widget here:

http://www.brookings.edu/multimedia/video/2010/1019_supermarket_access_berube.aspx

"Getting to Market" describes the important role that local supermarkets play in reducing food costs, expanding healthy food options and promoting economic development for lower-income households and communities. It also discusses how market obstacles limit supermarket access in some locations. The analysis estimates the retail opportunity in these low-access communities at a combined $2.6 billion annually.

"It is tremendously important in today's world to have quick and easy access to mapped data," explains Moira O'Donovan, a Research Project Manager at IFF. "We at IFF believe that resources – whether for education, health care, or other human services – should be targeted to where they are most needed. PolicyMap is the dynamic tool that allows us to assess these needs across our communities, thus supporting our internal business planning and our funders and government officials in making better decisions about policy and resource allocation."

"By allowing us at the IFF to visualize areas where our projects have the most impact, PolicyMap helps us better illustrate to our funders and to the public the extent of our work in distressed areas. Our most practical application of PolicyMap is as a time saving tool, as it allows us to avoid manually pulling data records at every request. Instead, through PolicyMap, we now have quick and easy access to specific data sets on one integrated platform. Even our interns are able to quickly pull together the information. With its variety of data sets, PolicyMap offers a very efficient, user-friendly tool for mapping and data analysis."
Moira O'Donovan, Research Project Manager at IFF

The Illinois Finance Fund utilizes PolicyMap in a wide variety of ways. By allowing them to visualize areas where their projects have the most impact, IFF can better illustrate to their funders and to the public the extent of their work in distressed areas. The dynamic features of PolicyMap not only allow IFF to pull their neighborhood-specific data quickly and efficiently, but also to create our own maps and better compile information about loans and development. With the vast selection of layering tools available for mapping, IFF has been able to access a considerably wider array of statistics for up-to-date analyses and surveys.

IFF is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) operating in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin which has provided more than $270 million in total financing. From childcare centers, primary health clinics, and supportive housing to charter schools and community arts programs, IFF loans and real estate consulting have developed more than 10 million square feet of new or renovated space and saved nonprofits millions of dollars in loan fees, interest and the cost of professional real estate advice.

Check out their widgets, powered by PolicyMap, here:

http://www.iff.org/chicago_map
http://www.iff.org/stlouis_map
http://www.iff.org/milwaukee_map

"Since Hurricane Katrina, LHFA has seen a dramatic growth in new housing investments in the region. With this came the need for us to maintain and access large volumes of housing data. PolicyMap gave us the ability to upload our data and have this data interact with larger, frequently updated data from the Census or HUD. This capacity is critical to helping us strategically plan our future investments."

"An important aspect of PolicyMap is its ability to increase the transparency of our investments. We are working with PolicyMap to build a widget of all our investments, encompassing all our funding streams. Our goal is to have this data accessible to not just our staff but to the general public as well. And PolicyMap is allowing us to do this through visually powerful maps, as opposed to just presenting the information in an Excel spreadsheet."

"We are looking forward to being able to use PolicyMap as a collaborative tool. We are currently working with other local agencies to see if more of them can begin using PolicyMap as a platform for their data. We would love to see PolicyMap become a comprehensive data repository that will encourage local collaboration."
Annie Clark, Policy Director, Louisiana Housing Finance Agency

"Before subscribing to TRF's PolicyMap tool, Community First Fund relied mostly on spreadsheets, charts and graphs to help us and our partners visualize the impact of our lending efforts. What was mostly lacking, however, was the geographical component that would put the facts and figures in perspective. With the help of PolicyMap, we have been able to supplement our charts with a powerful visual of our financing activity organized in a geospatial way. Community First's primary mission revolves around its Small Cities Strategy, which is aimed at offering diverse communities a variety of lending services. PolicyMap allows us to display our lending efforts along with a variety of variables on a succinct map, helping us get a clearer sense of our impact and determine if our activities are aligned with our ultimate goals."
Gina Gendusa, Senior Associate, Impact & Compliance, Community First Fund

Community First Fund is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with more than 16 years of experience in providing loans, business training and one-on-one counseling to entrepreneurs of all sizes, affordable housing and commercial real estate developers, and community groups in under-served communities in central Pennsylvania. Community First serves 13 counties with offices in Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Reading and Exton.

Check out their widget here:

http://www.commfirstfund.org/impact-main/impact-map/

"As a long-term, place-based investor, we use PolicyMap to view our investments in a specific neighborhood in relationship to others by public, private and nonprofit investors. PolicyMap offers the opportunity for truly collaborative partnerships between investors where we can support and understand each others' work in a way that creates maximum impact in a neighborhood."
Lois Greco, Senior Vice President, Evaluation Officer, Wachovia Regional Foundation

Learn more about how Wachovia is working with TRF and PolicyMap here:
http://www.policymap.com/casestudy1.html

"Every CDFI should be using PolicyMap. In my experience, it is the most comprehensive and accessible source of information I have seen for practitioners to really understand the underlying demographics, trends and realities in their communities. On the lending side, this tool provides in-depth information to assess both market opportunities and risk. From a social impact and public policy perspective, PolicyMap has enormous implications for helping CDFIs to "tell their story" about the benefits we create locally and why CDFIs are important to our nation's ability to create an inclusive prosperity."
Jeannine Jacokes, Chief Executive Officer, Partners for the Common Good

A nonprofit community development loan fund and certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), Partners for the Common Good (PCG) is the first wholesale loan participation network in the CDFI industry. Its mission is to advance economic justice and opportunity. By partnering with other mission-focused lenders and investors, PCG provides access to capital for low-income people and communities.

The Institute for Housing Studies (IHS) is a multidisciplinary academic research center that provides data and analysis to inform housing-related policy and resource allocation decisions.

The Real Estate Center at DePaul University created the Institute for Housing Studies (IHS) in 2007 with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation through the Preservation Compact. IHS is responsible for two of the Preservation Compact's keystones: the Rental Housing Data Clearinghouse and the Interagency Council.

PolicyMap worked with IHS to create an interactive widget that could visually display the Rental Housing Inventory indexes unique to "Community Area" geographies for Chicago, IL.

Check out their widget here: https://ihs.depaul.edu/ihs/?q=node/141

"PolicyMap has revolutionized the way we look at Transit-Oriented opportunities in the Denver Metro area. The level of customization and interaction made possible through PolicyMap is unparalleled in any mapping we've used. At the Urban Land Conservancy, it is vital to our work that we understand neighborhood context and community assets. PolicyMap has given us the tools to do this effectively."
Josh Burdick, Associate, The Urban Land Conservancy

The Urban Land Conservancy (ULC), a nonprofit organization established in 2003, uses real estate as a tool to benefit urban communities. In much the same way that a land trust preserves open space for future generations, ULC preserves community assets in urban areas to ensure their continued benefit.

"We initially subscribed to PolicyMap to assist us with commercial real estate workouts in Delaware. After using this product we realized that PolicyMap could be useful in our Commercial Real Estate lending and underwriting analysis as well.
Anthony D.Imperio, VP & Division Manager, Wilmington Trust

AME Careers is the online face of the California Department of Education's (CDE) Arts, Media and Entertainment Career Technical Education Initiative. This effort started in 2004 with the development of the first AME standards and frameworks. The overall goal of this sector project is to expand and support the network of Arts, Media and Entertainment programs in California's public high schools and colleges in order to connect and enhance the field of practitioners. The development and approval of the standards has engaged teachers, administrators and the industry.

Check out the widget here.

"PolicyMap, a recent addition to the Penn Library website, is a great resource to go to for up-to-date demographic data."
Sharon Black, Librarian at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania