Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Data To Build Community: Exploring One Model Of Geographically Specific Data Use In The Non-Profit Sector, Robert L. Fischer

Faculty Scholarship

Non-profit organizations strive to identify and build community in a variety of ways. A new development to assist non-profit organizations with this critical task is the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that incorporate data assembled from area non-profit organizations. In this article, we investigate the reasons why non-profit organizations adopt these systems, their inclusion of various stakeholders in site launch, and the challenges for sustaining GIS use. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with sites that have adopted a prominent GIS application – the Urban Institute's Community Platform – we find that although non-profits may implement GIS with the expressed …