Background

The Community Resources Council, Topeka is a non-profit community agency founded in 1925. It plays an active part in the growth of Topeka/Shawnee County. From publishing the Community Resources Directory, to working with coalitions to better the quality of life, to publishing & updating the Shawnee County Progress Report, CRC strives to bring government, social services, and businesses together. CRC’s mission is to connect the resources in the community through research, information, advocacy, and collaboration.

Information is therefore at the core of CRC’s activities and in 2009 according to CRC’s executive director Nancy Johnson, there was a growing need to keep up with developments in data presentation. Having seen how Jacksonville Community Council was using data presentation to make its community indicators available in an easy-to-digest format, she decided to try the same approach.

Getting started

Nancy made contact with InstantAtlas and her initial concerns about cost were laid to rest. She became convinced that it was the right data presentation tool for CRC. The board agreed and decided to buy InstantAtlas. Making the entire 2009 CRC Progress Report available online as an interactive report was the first project.

The purpose of The Progress Report is to provide useful information to gauge quality of life in Shawnee County. It provides information to businesses, governments and other organizations to assess the condition of the community. This information is intended to be used by anyone wanting to plan for the future.

Meeting the need

The challenge for Nancy was that, as a relatively small organisation with just four members of staff, a great deal of work would be involved. It took longer than anticipated to set up the templates but now they have been created, loading additional data has become very straightforward. Nancy says that feedback from the team at the CRC has certainly been positive.

Nancy says that users are a diverse group and include organizations and individuals making grant applications. However, Nancy is the first to admit that awareness is currently low and that CRC hasn’t made the most of the data presentation. This is set to change as the CRC embarks on an awareness campaign. Nancy is planning a media campaign that will ensure everyone in the county knows about this valuable resource. “Once it hits the press we will be swamped,” she says.

Future developments

Although Nancy is clear about not trying to run before it can walk, the CRC has ambitions to include more counties in the initiative. Nancy can see other ways in which a data presentation tool like InstantAtlas could be used by CRC. One such area is with data around quality of life – attendance at musical events, zoos and so on. The value for the community is that when an intervention (promoting musical concerts) is taking place, the impact can be measured.

Key Benefits

• Data presentation software has enabled CRC to meet its objective of getting useful data back into the community
• Community leaders, businesses and other non-profit organisations benefits from having a greater understanding of what is happening in the county
• Staff at the CRC have found InstantAtlas easy to use and once templates are created additional data sets can be included quickly

Other community indicator stories that may interest you

Jacksonville Community Council Inc.

Pinellas County Health and Human Services Coordinating Council

Roanoke Council of Community Services

Our First TalkCIS interview with JCCI, Pinellas County and Applied Survey Research