The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood? From Market Analytics to Missional Context Reports

This post is the last of a seven post series on MapDash Analytics

by Ken Howard

One of the many features of MapDash for Faith Communities that makes it unique among other faith-based demographic tools is an analytic report that we call a Missional Context ReportTM. MCRs were developed by FaithX as a way for faith leaders at the congregations and judicatory level to better understand the lifestyles of the people in their neighborhoods in order to better engage them. 

MCRs are one-page reports that translate market segmentation data into ten areas of key information and practical programmatic and ministry opportunities that congregations can use to better target their engagement strategies to the unique lifestyles of the dominant population segment in each of the neighborhoods that form the community they serve. These areas are:

  1. Communications and Technology
  2. Education and Formation
  3. Hospitality and Fellowship
  4. Leadership/Doership Skill Set
  5. Midweek Involvement
  6. Neighborhood Characteristics and Issues
  7. Outreach Opportunities 
  8. Stewardship and Finance
  9. Theological/Political Orientation
  10. Worship

You can find a sample MCR here

[Read more…]

Datastory Releases Greatly Enhanced MapDash 2.2

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:

[Read more…]

“Grounding Discernment in Data” Article Published in Peer-Reviewed Journal

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal) recently asked Ken if he would submit for review and publication a paper on FaithX’s collaborative work with Datastory to help congregations and judicatories to better understand and more effectively engage emerging missional opportunities, through the use of Datastory’s MapDashTM for Faith Communities GIS Technology and FaithX’s Strategic Missional Planning process. That paper was just published in the journal’s Fall 2019 issue as “Grounding Discernment in Data: Strategic Missional Planning Using GIS Technology and Market Segmentation Data.” Included below is the abstract of the article:

Abstract

Taking Jesus’ call to love our neighbors seriously requires engaging them in the neighborhoods where they live. However, neighborhoods are transforming demographically faster than ever before. If we can help congregations more quickly understand their neighborhoods, there is a much greater likelihood that they will grow to love them as they love themselves. The question before us is, how do we help faith communities and their leaders engage missional opportunities that are emerging from rapid population change? The goal of the FaithX Project is to make it possible for faith communities, their leaders, and the judicatories that support them to employ location intelligence and predictive analytics in order for them to discern emerging missional opportunities. FaithX then helps them to create effective missional strategies for engaging those opportunities by asking four essential questions: What is our neighborhood? Who are our neighbors? What are our neighborhood’s issues and opportunities? What are our neighborhood’s resources?

Click here to read the full article on the SHERM website

Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry (SHERM Journal)  is a biannual, not-for-profit, free peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes the latest social-scientific, historiographic, and ecclesiastic research on religious institutions and their ministerial practices. SHERM is dedicated to the critical and scholarly inquiry of historical and contemporary religious phenomena, both from within particular religious traditions and across cultural boundaries, so as to inform the broader socio-historical analysis of religion and its related fields of study.

SHERM Journal is sponsored by but fully editorially independent of FaithX.

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 here to schedule a free demo of MapDash for Faith Communities and Strategic Missional Planning

CVI Analytic Indicators as Check Engine Light

Part 5  in a series on MapDash analytics

By Ken Howard

After the last blog post in our series on MapDash Analytics, some of you asked, “What is the most appropriate way for me to consider what the indicators of the Congregational Vitality Index (CVI) are trying to tell me?”

I find that the best analogy to the Green-Yellow-Red ratings of the indicators that make Congregational Vitality Index (as well as the factors that make up those indicators) is that they are “warning lights,” like the “check engine” light on your car’s dashboard:

  • If it’s green, keep on driving – but keep up your scheduled maintenance
  • If it’s yellow, attention required – make an appointment to have it checked
  • If it’s red, urgent attention required – stop the car right now and have it towed to the dealer.
[Read more…]

Directional Indicators and Discernment Starters: Congregational Vitality and Sustainability Trend Indexes

By Ken Howard

(This is the fourth of eight articles on MapDash for Faith Communities Analytics)

Two of the most asked questions about analytics provided by MapDash for Faith Communities are about the Congregational Vitality Index (CVI) and the Congregational Sustainability Index (CSI). Both are powerful analytic tools if used wisely. The purpose of this article is to help MapDash users properly understand these tools, so they can interpret them appropriately and apply them effectively.

What They Are and What They Aren’t

CVI and CSI are not assessments. Assessments are direct, graded, criterion-referenced measurements that provide objective answers at a point in time. They make judgements based on facts that either inform or imply what the decision maker should do about it. Example (sailing): Is your boat currently leaking? If yes, fix the leak. If no, good to go.

CVI and CSI are indexes. Indexes are a collection of indicators that sample and describe the relative overall direction of factors that are correlated with a particular concern and may be predictive of it, but do not measure the concern directly. They describe a trend and let the user discern what the trend means and what to do about it by filtering insights through the organizations vision, mission, commitments, resources, etc. Example (sailing): If you continue to sail in the direction you have been, are you heading shoreward or toward the open sea? If you mean to sail across the ocean blue, go on with your bad self. If not, better tack toward the shore.

[Read more…]

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