An Introduction to MapDash Analytics

To fully understand location-based data we need to organize and examine the data in four different ways. We have to:

  1. Visualize – Get your faith community’s data on an map, so you can explore it visually.
  2. Contextualize – Find your faith community’s place in the data, so you can examine its missional context.
  3. Analyze – Interrogate the data, to reveal what it means for your faith community.
  4. Socialize – Share your data, with leaders, members, the community, funders, and other stakeholders

Today’s post is about step 3, and the analytic tools MapDash for Faith Communities provides that help you reveal what demographic, lifestyle, and other data mean for your faith community or judicatory.

MapDash for Faith Communities includes seven analytic map layers. The following is a brief summary of each of those layers:

MissionWebs.
Shows each congregation’s area of greatest influence and attraction.


DriveTimes.
Shows the area from which most of a congregation’s potential members will come.


Missional Opportunity Index.
Show a judicatory’s areas of greatest missional opportunities and challenges.


Missional Context Reports.
Helps you understand the practical implications of the unique lifestyles and habits of people in a given neighborhood.


Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report.
Lets you “drop a pin” on any location and create an interactive snapshot report of any neighborhood’s population characteristics,
needs, and opportunities.


Congregational Vitality Index.
Provides a Vitality Index score for any congregation, based on key internal congregational trends.


Congregational Sustainability Index.
Provides a Sustainability score for any congregation, based on key external community projections.


Watch this space as we examine each of these analytic map layers more fully in future blog posts.