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May 12, 2011

Cicero and TechSoup Partnership: Providing Nonprofits With Free API Access

Recently in our company newsletter we announced a new partnership with TechSoup Global – a nonprofit organization dedicated to making technology and technology education available and affordable to other nonprofits worldwide – to offer a new Cicero API account type (5,000 free credits to be used for any of Cicero API’s address-based district matching or elected official data lookup web services) through TechSoup’s product donation program.

Why would we choose to give Cicero API credits away for free? There are several very good reasons for this decision (it’s not just the fresh spring air getting to our heads).

As a company, our mission is to apply geographic data and software to promote more dynamic and sustainable communities. Our B Corporation status is part of this commitment and we are dedicated to working with nonprofits to meet their unique spatial analysis and mapping needs.

We created Cicero several years ago for a local nonprofit arts advocacy organization who needed to quickly mobilize their members to contact their own city council member to advocate for preserving much needed funding for the arts. Based on their need for an inexpensive and rapid way to match constituents to local elected officials, we created the Cicero API which they were able to easily integrate into their website to be used during the member sign up process and into their contact management system.

Additionally, we wanted to provide a way for smaller nonprofits to explore the use of the API on a small scale so they could evaluate the value of district matching prior to making the decision to purchase a larger batch of credits at our nonprofit rate. Currently, our nonprofit clients use the Cicero API to meet a wide variety of goals:

Stamp their member records with their elected officials’ contact information in order to conduct automated ‘Contact your legislator’ campaigns by email, phone, fax or snail mail.
Segment their address records by legislative district to better understand their constituents/members, advocate for a particular issue, better target their outreach campaigns, etc.
Provide website visitors with an address-based district matching and elected official lookup tool

A couple details about the Cicero API account through TechSoup:

Nonprofits can request a donation of Cicero for a basic administrative fee of $25.
Each batch of credits is good for one year from date of purchase.
If the organization uses all 5,000 credits before they are eligible for another account through TechSoup, they can purchase additional credits directly from us at a reduced nonprofit rate.

As a reminder, the Cicero API not only provides easy access to address-based district matching but also to maps of each legislative district, contact information for local, state, and national elected officials in the United States and data for legislative officials and election events around the world. The service includes coverage in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Cicero team of GIS Analysts and political data researchers continue to add foreign legislatures to the data collection based on client requests.

The database also includes district matching for U.S. police districts, school districts, and watersheds. All told, the Cicero system now holds over 10,000 legislative boundaries and information on nearly 13,000 elected officials. The API currently provides data to public and private web applications for newspapers, election watchdog groups, philanthropic foundations, unions, arts organizations and private commercial firms. Azavea also operates an off-line batch service for organizations that have ad hoc district-matching needs.

Cicero’s purchase page on the TechSoup website: http://www.azavea.com/techsoupcicero

TechSoup Global is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working towards the day when every nonprofit, library, and social benefit organization on the planet has the technology knowledge and resources they need to operate at their full potential. It provides technology information to organizations all over the world. TechSoup Global continues to innovate with a goal of bringing increased resources and capacity to organizations working diligently on their social missions. In addition to the Cicero API, TechSoup Global has a network of more than 40 corporate donor partners including Microsoft, Cisco and Symantec. For more information about technology donations and resources, visit www.techsoup.org

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Mar 22, 2011

#11NTC & Nonprofit Technology Mapping Resources

By Jeremy Heffner

I always return from the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference energized to do even more to support the nonprofit sector. Why? Because the people are amazing. They are bringing dictionaries to students, helping people find volunteering opportunities, helping environmental organizations mobilize their communities, ensuring we have safe food and water from farmland that is local, and providing nonprofits with advocacy tools that they need to create change.

I left the nonprofit world a year and a half ago to join Azavea, but I would have never done so if I hadn’t found a company that was dedicated to creating true change which just so happened to be a for-profit. This is one of the reasons Azavea became a B Corporation a year ago — to demonstrate just how committed we are to improving the community around us.

Azavea is not new to working with nonprofits and change makers. We’ve helped a theater better understand their ticket buyers and supporters, a public arts program share their collection of murals and keep track of mural conditions over time, a sustainable business organization encourage the use of sustainable transit, and advocacy organizations to engage the public in redistricting through open source tools to name a few.

The projects we take on (whether for nonprofits or not) have three qualities:

the project has social value
the project is more than simply putting dots on a map
the project leverages geography (and typically the web or mobile technology)

Here are four ways that we can help you, as a nonprofit, move beyond dots on a map:

1. Putting Maps to Work: A Webinar for Nonprofits

My colleague, Tamara, recently put on a series of seminars at NPower PA to demonstrate the different ways that a nonprofit can utilize GIS software. From helping you to better plan outreach to reporting program outcomes to funders, generating compelling maps can help your organization to tell your story more effectively. Tamara and I are hosting a condensed, webinar version of the seminar on Thursday, April 21, 2011 from 1-2pm EDT. Registration is free at the link below and we are planning to cover:

- Best practices for collecting, managing and sharing geodata
- An introduction to geocoding
- An overview of key map types
- Pointers to free and low-cost resources to get you started with mapping and GIS

2. Leverage Esri’s Software Donation on TechSoup

Azavea is a business partner with Esri, the market leader in geographic information systems (GIS) software. Like most commerical software, Esri’s products are not free, but thankfully you are a nonprofit and can leverage their donation program on TechSoup which includes training.

Esri has different versions and extensions of their desktop software. A good starting point is ArcView which will meet most nonprofit needs. Your nonprofit can request an ArcView license on TechSoup. The software has a bit of a learning curve if you are not familiar with GIS software, but where there is a will, there is a way. Esri includes online training with the product donation to help you get started and when you are ready to jump to web-based geographic analysis, we can help you figure out the right mix of software technology that will best meet your needs.

3. Leverage Azavea’s Cicero API Donation on TechSoup

A few years ago we built an elected official district matching API to meet the needs of a local nonprofit arts advocacy organization. Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance wanted to reach out to city council members but there wasn’t a way to match an address to a council district and thus was born the Cicero API. Today, the API provides true geographic district matching for 100 US city councils, state and federal legislatures, as well as non-legislative districts such as watersheds, school districts, and police districts. Cicero has been used to power legislator look-up tools on websites, stamp databases with electoral districts for reporting, and power advocacy calls-to-action.

We’re pleased to announce that we are bringing the Cicero API to TechSoup Stock in a few weeks. Stay tuned for more information or drop us a note to be notified when the donation program rolls out on TechSoup Stock.

Update: You can find the Cicero API listed in TechSoup Stock here.

4. Nonprofit GIS Brainstorming & Assessments

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to get started and having the knowledge of what is possible and what questions to ask can help immensely. We believe in being generous with our time, and are more than happy to spend an hour of our time answering your GIS questions or bouncing around the mapping idea you have.

Drop us a note and say hello, we’d love to get to know you better.