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About the Project & Acknowledgements

The Internet Mapping for Communities (IM4C) project represents a partnership between Maine's Communities for Children & Youth (C4C&Y) Initiative, The Wilderness Society and Applied GIS (now Fountains Spatial) to provide accessible and mappable census and economic data for the 50 US states, and additional Maine state data gathered by state agencies and universities. This data is available via www.CommunityData.Info. The new web-based application produces reports that incorporate data relevant to the well being of local communities. Maps, charts, graphs and tables are available in these reports, which can be built on-line and downloaded, providing local communities with a powerful tool for planning, decision-making, fundraising, and evaluation. The project expanded The Wilderness Society's county-level GIS (geographic information systems) economic data mapping capacity to additionally include town/city ("subcounty") Census 2000 data across the nation, school district level data for Maine only, and other county level Maine data. Additionally, the portal page offers citizens and community groups links to the kinds of data they want from a variety of other sources.

Communities for Children & Youth, an initiative of the Governor's Children's Cabinet, developed this project to provide support to its statewide network of 71 community-level partner coalitions that are charged with conducting local needs assessments and planning for prevention, health promotion and positive youth development programs throughout the state. Potential beneficiaries of the IM4C approach also include other community groups across the country working with data that depict the "human ecology."

  • The project developed a web-based system based on use by the kinds of people who organize locally to make a difference, and helped to build capacity at the state level to supply the data that communities need.
  • The project worked with community coalitions to determine possible uses, assist in the selection of data elements/indicators, and facilitate the use of the data with other community groups.
  • The project provided partners with valuable information on how community groups use data and the best ways to assist them.
  • The project built an entry "portal" to the system that allows groups of child and youth well-being planners to identify data elements/indicators through the lens of several sets of risk and protective factors currently used in the prevention community.
  • The project, through the entry portal, also started a listing of QOL (quality of life) indicators and data sources to support the work of coalitions working with people of all ages, and all community well-being issues.
  • The project built partnerships among collectors of economic, health and human services, and education data, offering a cost effective way of making their data available to the public. This tool's purpose is to increase the value of existing systems by offering another way to turn data into readily usable information.
  • In addition to the data that is already in the system, the application will accommodate additional data sets from a variety of state and local sources, in any topic area. The costs of adding data must be supported by those with an interest in the information being made available.

Acknowledgements

C4C&Y had offered local coalitions a set of town-level data developed in 1998 in collaboration with the State Planning Office. When the time came to update the data, C4C&Y staff member Meredith Fossel and Americorps*VISTA Bernardo Feliciano designed the IM4C Project and wrote a successful grant proposal to the US Department of Commerce, Technology Opportunities Program, to fund the project.

A Project Advisory and Content Review Team and community level Data Teams drew on stakeholders from the state and local levels. Stakeholders represent Maine's Children's Cabinet agencies, The Wilderness Society, the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine, InforME (the state web site designers), the State Planning Office, Maine GIS, and local Communities for Children & Youth Partners.

Spencer Phillips, working at The Wilderness Society (TWS), developed the original application upon which the new tool is based. He gave unending hours of in-kind time to this project, expanding the scope of the data it supplied through that system from the northeast region to the nation, including Alaska and Hawaii, as well as preparing the Maine specific data added through this project. The Wilderness Society has provided additional in-kind staff support by Ann Ingerson, and has made a commitment to updating the Census and REIS data as new data becomes available.

Mark Haberle of Applied GIS was contracted to do the technical aspects of the application development, and was very patient in working from a distance with a diverse team of people, many of whom did not have technical backgrounds.

InforME, the developer and manager of the State of Maine government website, gave extensive in-kind support to the project by designing the web portal page.

The Maine GIS state office hosts the new system, and assisted with many project elements.

The Muskie Institute at the University of Southern Maine, Institute for Public Sector Innovation, provided the technical consultant who connected the application developers in Vermont with the resources in Maine, and offered training to local coalitions. The Muskie Institute additionally provided the evaluation team that tracked the work of the local coalition members as they developed their knowledge of data mapping and use of this specific web-based application.

Project staff included Susan Savell, C4C&Y Executive Coordinator and Diane Maxwell, C4C&Y Research Assistant; Mitch Boynton, Dept. of Corrections Finance Department (Fiscal Agent for the grant), and many consultants, including: Spencer Phillips, The Wilderness Society; Mark Haberle, Applied GIS, Inc., Crystal Wakem, Technology, Muskie Institute; Diane Haley, Al Sheehy, and Jennifer Pratt, Evaluation, Muskie Institute; Bernardo Feliciano, Data Consultant; and Diane Brandon, Project Coordinator, Community Wellness Coalition.

The project included testing the enhanced system in local community coalitions over the course of the project. Local Data Teams included the following, with apologies to anyone we may have left off of this list:

  • Kathi Wall, Capital Kids (Augusta)
  • Michele Prince, Kennebec County Waterville – KVCAP
  • Cyndi Desrosiers, Kennebec County Waterville OneME
  • Erin Frati, Kennebec County Waterville PATCH, VISTA
  • Sarah Shed, Southern Kennebec Healthy Communities Coalition
  • Joanne Joy, Southern Kennebec Healthy Communities /Getting Healthy
  • Alberta Cole, Northwest Somerset County Communities for Children
  • Dana Hamilton, Northwest Somerset County Communities for Children
  • Alison Webb, Waterville PATCH, Board President
  • Natalie Morse, Waterville PATCH/Maine General Health
  • Tony Wild, Healthy Maine Partnership, Goodall Hospital
  • Melissa Boyd, York Children’s Leadership Council
  • Peter Kirwan, Community Wellness Coalition
  • Allen Millett, Youth Promise of Lincoln County
  • Mary Trescot, Youth Promise of Lincoln County
  • Nicole Ditata, Franklin County Healthy Community Coalition
  • Doug Michael, Healthy Acadia
  • Dona Forke, Lake Region HCC/C4C&Y
  • Ken Morse, Oxford Hills Healthy Communities
  • Anne Tricomi, Portland Asset Builders Program/City
  • Dorothy Grannell, Portland Asset Builders/United Way
  • Sara M. Yasner, United Way of Eastern Maine
  • Jamie Colmstock, United Way of Eastern Maine

This project was made possible by a grant from the US Department of Commerce, Technology Opportunities Program.