PolicyMap Powers New BankOn Mapping Tool!

October 2011

PolicyMap Powers New “BankOn” Mapping Tool!

PolicyMap is more than just a website – it is a robust platform bringing data-rich, interactive maps to new websites every day. Finally, a tool that allows you to stop worrying about how you are going to bring maps to your website and instead lets you focus on what you want to show your visitors.

This month, we put the spotlight on one of the newest websites to use PolicyMap and bring you an update of new data now available.

Customer Spotlight: CFED “JoinBankOn”

The Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), with support from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and in partnership with the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment, the National League of Cities and the New America Foundation, launched a new-and-improved Bank On website and selected PolicyMap as the platform to power its interactive online maps.

One of the newest features of JoinBankOn.org is Research Your Community, a tool to get estimates and maps of a very unique dataset showing the number of unbanked and underbanked households in your local community. Knowing the size of the unbanked and underbanked population in your community is helpful in understanding the needs of your local market.

(Unbanked households are those with no checking or savings account, and underbanked households are those with an account but rely on alternative financial services such as check-cashing services, payday loans, rent-to-own agreements, or pawn shops.)

Kasey Wiedrich, Senior Program Manager at CFED explains why they chose PolicyMap: “PolicyMap made it simple for us to share the extensive data we have on the unbanked and underbanked populations in America….Access to this data is particularly important to anyone working to develop effective strategies aimed at increasing financial access for those who may be living outside of the financial mainstream.


Census 2010 Summary File 1 (SF1): Although the Census 2010 summary file does not contain all of the indicators found in previous years, the recently released Census 2010 SF 1 data on PolicyMap has more information than ever for 2010, including age, home ownership, and renter information, along with race and ethnicity categories. Find the data in our Demographics, Owners and Renters, and Neighborhood Conditions tabs.


Limited Supermarket Access Areas: TRF, along with the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund and the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), released its latest analysis of food access in underserved communities across the country. Available through PolicyMap, the study reveals 24.6 million Americans live in areas with poor access to supermarkets. Find this new data under the TRF Analytics tab and turn to our blog for more information on this latest study.

Also New on PolicyMap in November:

  • Home Sale Data for 2011 Q1 (Real Estate Analysis)
  • NCES Education data such as graduation rates, student/teacher ratios, and district revenues and expenditures for various years (Education)
  • Monthly Unemployment Data for September (Jobs & Economy)
  • Building Permits Data for 2011 Q3 (Real Estate Analysis)
  • Supplemental Security Income Data for 2010 (Demographics)

Upcoming News!

In the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting other clients who are using PolicyMap in new and exciting ways. We’ll also release some new features to improve your PolicyMap experience, begin mapping to the new 2010 Tiger files, and bring you updates to the datasets you rely on most often, including Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and Small Business Lending data. Need something more? Just let us know at pmap@policymap.com or call us at (866) 923-MAPS