July 23, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Grant makers seeking direction on where their money could make the biggest difference — or which geographic areas have been most overlooked — now have a virtual road map at their disposal. The Foundation Center has added a new service, Philanthropy In/Sight, that allows people to create custom Google maps using the center’s grants databases.
The service, updated weekly, draws on information from 97,000 foundations and more than 1.6 million grants, according to the Foundation Center. It overlays the grant information with demographic and socioeconomic data, creating visual displays of giving trends.
Seeing such information in map form can help shape grant decisions and public policy, “whether you’re interested in global warming in Alaska, tropical diseases in Zambia, or who’s funding what in your local Congressional district,” says Bradford K. Smith, the Foundation Center’s president.
For more information: Go to http:// foundationcenter.org/media/news/ 20090713.html.
