Bar Graph Compares Poverty Percentage in Central Indiana
“It gives you the ability to sit down and
create a research document that’s much
more current, and much more customized
to what it is that you need to know,” says
Karen Gentleman, a longtime UWCI board
member who has served as an advisor in
the tool’s creation. “And to do that again
and again.”
Gentleman has firsthand experience
with the tool’s ease of use—and its power.
“I work with a hunger-relief agency, so
one day I decided to sit down with [a beta
version of the tool] and find out everything I
could about hunger in Central Indiana,” she
says. “I spent about an hour and mapped
out some key indicators of poverty levels.
“Then I overlaid onto that map all of the
food pantries that were in the database.
And you could clearly see that there were
these gaps, where there was hunger and
need, but there was no food pantry.
“I forward the report to the director of
the relief agency that I work with. And she
was like: ‘Wow, where did you get this?’ So
that’s the kind of thing people will be able
to do with it.”
Gentleman remembers all too clearly
the time, energy, and cost involved in
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Bar Graph Shows Total 211 Calls By Category
creating similar reports in the not-toodistant past.
About a decade ago, she led a team
that created a needs assessment for
communities across Central Indiana.
The information was drawn from census
reports, schools, health departments, and
multiple other sources.
UWCI published a new assessment
every few years, and each time it was “a
massive undertaking,” Gentleman says.
The final product was about 500 pages,
and it was out of date almost immediately.
Even so, nonprofits bought and used it,
since it was the most comprehensi ve
resource for data about their communities.
By creating easier
access to vital data,
this new tool multiplies
SAVI ’s value to
organizations,
helps them work even
more efficiently, and builds
stronger communities
across Indiana.