Creating a New York City Online Map of the Nonprofit Sector

Increased service demand along with retrenchment by governments and donors make it critical that the City and nonprofits work together. The NYC United Way and the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, seeking to strengthen the nonprofit sector, confronted the problem that the sector is not well mapped. The Capstone team was given the task of identifying and appraising multiple publicly available data sources with the aim to develop a consolidated inventory needed to understand the scope and complexity of NYC's nonprofit sector. Past surveys began this process but were snapshots, not the continuing portrait needed for such a dynamic sector. Research included literature review, focus groups, and interviews analyzed to produce options for an online web portal, one tool in an expanding set of City resources. With additional data it can be used to analyze the functional and financial resiliency of NYC nonprofits.