PolicyMap has been really, really helpful in providing us with important statistics that tell the story of a neighborhood or service area. Emily Gamertsfelder, Planning, Projects and Data Coordinator
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Challenge

Library branches were assigned service areas based on location instead of on where customers actually lived, so each branch was unable to respond to its customers’ needs. Planning, Projects and Data Coordinator, Emily Gamertsfelder, and Data Analyst Rachel Blythe needed to update the service areas so that each branch could better serve its customers.

Solution

Emily matched customer addresses with the branches they were borrowing from, then used PolicyMap’s data uploader to map each branch’s customers. Armed with this information, she used the “custom region” function to create new service area boundaries for the library’s branches. Using the updated service area map as a base, Emily and Rachel have been able to create maps and reports about each service area’s demographics to share with staff who can then target their services and programs to their constituent’s needs.