
So as I've offhandedly mentioned in this blog, over the past dozen or so weeks, a campusCATALYST team of 5 Northwestern students have been working with us to develop a marketing strategy for our GIS mapping capacity. For more information about our use of GIS mapping see my rockstar friend and coworker, Mike Trakan's "Mapping for Justice" blog. Over the past year he has been creating static maps using his GIS skills that help us "tell the rest of the story". That is, in the wake of a tragic shooting or a piece of investigative journalism that highlights high-poverty neighborhoods, Trakan creates maps that can be used to help show leadership strategies that can help individuals and organizations improve their strategy, fundraising and knowledge.
Since the budget for continuing this mapping project has run out and we are struggling to secure

In order to successfully market these services, they recommended that we create a webpage on www.tutormentorconnection.org dedicated to selling our mapping services that clearly lays out our services and their cost. One major finding of their survey was that many potential customers are unclear about the benefits of using this mapping technology to their organization. For this reason, we should include testimonials and examples of how this analysis can be utilized to benefit their organization. This site should also have examples of ways that organizations can benefit by utilizing our maps to help us make our case. They also advocate clearly connecting these mapping services to the underlying mission of the T/MC in order to justify to potential clients why we're offering this service. Since we are going to be marketing these maps primarily via one-on-one conversations with potential client organizations, I think this is particularly important, particularly given that it's rarely clear at first glance how exactly GIS mapping relates to our underlying mission. I for one constantly find myself explaining the many ways that GIS mapping helps our organization try to more effectively tell our story and develop leadership strategies that bring in volunteers, dollars, policy change and media awareness. For more info, stay tuned, or check out Mike Trakan's blog at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/
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