The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

FaithX Shortlisted for 2022 Esri Map Book

FaithX was recently informed by Esri that a GIS map we produced, entitled Redlining and Race: Mapping Systemic Racism, which was presented in Esri’s 2021 User Conference Plenary Session [view video | view still photo], has been shortlisted for inclusion in their 2022 Esri Map Book (Volume 37). We will find out later this year whether we made the final cut.

Each year Esri selects several dozen maps submitted by users and showcases some of the work of some of those users in a formal publication known as the Map Book. The purpose of this publication is to show how the application of GIS is creating positive outcomes in organizations and across society.

The map in question was taken from one of our Mapping Systemic Racism webinars, in which we explored the manifestations and impacts of systemic racism in a congregation in Brooklyn, New York. [click here to view the webinar]. As a result of this webinar, FaithX and our affiliate Datastory were invited to develop a more expansive systemic racism mapping program for the entirety of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island using the powerful demographic–analytic platform MapDash for Faith Communities. 

FaithX can help your congregation or judicatory explore the impact of structural racism in the neighborhoods and communities they serve with a Data-Grounded Systemic Racism Assessment. For more information, contact info@faithx.net.

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Keeping Congregations Connected: Strategies and Tools for COVID-Related Outreach

By the Rev. Ken Howard

Keeping Congregations Together in the Face of COVID19 is a blog series on strategies and tools for doing and being what God is calling your congregation to be and do in the current pandemic.
Click here for the previous post

How can our congregations do effective outreach while the COVID pandemic makes social distancing necessary?

How can our congregations contribute to controlling the Coronavirus?

These are two important questions to ask and answer during the current pandemic (and there are likely many more)…

First, ground yourself in hard data from reliable sources about Coronavirus and COVID19: What is it? What does it do? How does it spread? How can people both protect themselves from the virus and avoid spreading it to others? How do you know you might have it? What do you do if you think you do? What COVID-related resources are in your area?

Reliable, data-grounded sources and resources include:

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Datastory Releases Greatly Enhanced MapDash 2.2

This post on the release of MapDash 2.2 was written
by Ken Howard

Earlier this month, Datastory released its much anticipated and greatly enhanced MapDash 2.2. 

It is amazing how far we’ve come so fast.

It was only two years ago that Datastory and FaithX teamed up to begin shaping a faith-based version of Datastory’s powerful MapDash demographic/analytic platform. Then in July of last year, after several rounds of rapid prototyping and testing in judicatories in five states, Datastory launched MapDash for Faith Communities, and FaithX launched consultative strategic missional planning programs that leverage its unique capabilities for faith communities and the judicatories that support them.

Even then the capabilities of MapDash went far beyond any demographic tool available at the time, bringing real time interactive experience and powerful analytics available nowhere else. MapDash 2.2, honed by input and feedback from actual users, goes even further, with an updated layout, more than double the data, and comprehensive improvements to tools and widgets. 

One of those tools is the new Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report (NMIR), an infographic report designed to give users an interactive snapshot of their neighborhoods. As described in an earlier post, FaithX employs the MapDash NMIR as the core of its Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Assessment, a 3-hour, online consultation designed for congregations seeking to better understand and engage the communities they serve.

Some of the new data features of MapDash 2.2 include:

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A Priest and A Data Geek Walk Into A Bar: Sneak Preview of Ken’s Esri User Conference Presentation

On Tuesday, July 9 at 11:15am, Ken Howard, our executive director and principal consultant, will deliver a presentation on data-grounded strategic missional planning at the Esri International User Conference in San Diego, CA.*

The presentation, “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using MapDash for Faith Communities” will describe how FaithX collaborated with Datastory to adapt interactive GIS technology to provide a platform and a process to help congregations and their judicatories learn the stories of their neighborhoods, identify missional opportunities and challenges emerging from those stories, and develop effective strategies for engaging them. Ken has been asked to deliver this 20-minute presentation as part of Esri’s Expo Spotlight Theater, which will also be spotlighting how other nonprofit organizations put GIS data to work in their respective areas of focus.

Since few of you will be attending the Esri User Conference and many of you have asked about the presentation, we thought it would be a good idea to give our faithful readers a sneak preview.  

Click here to view Grounding Discernment in Data

This presentation is in the form of a datastory:
an interactive presentation tool.
To view the presentation, simply scroll up through the “slides.”

*Esri is an international supplier of geographic information system software, web GIS, and geodatabase management applications.
The company is headquartered in Redlands, California.
The company was founded as Environmental Systems Research Institute
in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm.

Support FaithX

FaithX is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and Ken’s faith-based consulting practice at FaithX is done under an extension of ministry from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.

Want to learn more about missional opportunities
in your congregation’s neighborhood?
Click here for a free Neighborhood Missional Intelligence Report

Want to learn how your judicatory can identify
emerging missional opportunities within its boundaries?
Click hereto schedule a free demo of MapDash for Faith Communities by Datastory
and Strategic Missional Planning by FaithX

Using Science to Find the Faithful: FaithX and MapDash Feature in WhereNext eMagazine

FaithX and MapDash for Faith Communities were featured in an article published this week in WHERENEXT, an online eMagazine of Esri, the international GIS company that provides much of the data that powers MapDash. The author’s team interviewed FaithX founder Ken Howard, and faith leaders representing several FaithX clients, including:

Scroll down for an excerpt from and a link to the WhereNext article…

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