NewImpact Wiki
What resources might be repurposed or leveraged? A free tool to share & find resources
Our vision is for widespread, scalable application of tri-sector solutions, solving problems across the country, in every city or region, in a wide range of impact areas.
To foster such solutions, we must first reimagine, repurpose, and realign resources that already exist. And to do that, we must first know what resources exist and where they are, as well as how they might align.
Resources are not generally catalogued or organized in a way that supports finding and aligning them. Tools are needed to map, organize, and find/discover resources — this is why we created the NewImpact Wiki.
The NewImpact Wiki is a growing free and open online catalogue of companies, nonprofits, and government agencies, including their resources, tagged by geography, population served, and impact area.
Repurposing and aligning resources is central to addressing complex problems, and our aim for the wiki is to build a free, expansive directory of resources that is free and accessible to everyone and supports a growing ecosystem of innovation with impact.
At scale, we envision a searchable, global wiki where every government department and program (national, regional, state, city), every business (multi-nationals and startups), every nonprofit (international and local) and every institution (universities, museums, medical centers) has its own landing page with information and resources. The potential is vast. There are thousands of solutions to be discovered in the data.
Current NewImpact Wiki data include:
794,838 organizations mapped to impact areas
76,559 mapped resources
54,947 mapped datasets
How it works
Data in the NewImpact Wiki are stored in a database and accessed via two main interfaces:
a cloud-based wiki editing interface for entering/editing information into the wiki database about organizations and their resources
cloud-based wiki data dashboard with interactive visualizations of wiki data to help surface resources and organizations that may be a good fit for an innovation with impact.
The NewImpact Wiki editing interface allows anyone to create or update information about an organization, program, or resource through a series of forms.
Today the wiki data is primarily created and maintained by contributors working on tri-sector projects, based on information publicly available about organizations. Over time this information will also be entered by automated bots, and anyone interested in contributing or editing information.
Eventually, data will also include data from and links to open data sources about organizations and resources, for example OpenCorporates, Wikidata, public data, and more.
Screenshot of current NewImpact Wiki editing interface. Click image for expanded view.
Currently the editing interface is a separate interface from the visualization interface, our plan is to support a more integrated view in the future.
The NewImpact Wiki Dashboard allows anyone to explore information in the wiki using interactive data visualizations.
The interactive visualizations allow anyone to intuitively explore or search data in the NewImpact Wiki to uncover resources, organizations, and patterns.
Using the NewImpact Wiki Dashboard, it is possible to :
Filter all information by geography, sector, sector level, and/or impact area
See a regional or sectoral landscape of organizations and resources for an impact area
Surface programs and resources from all sectors that can be leveraged and repurposed for impact
Find organizations by impact area to uncover potential alignment
Explore adjacent impact areas to find new connections that may lead to more opportunities and resources
Dive into detail for specific resources and organizations
Explore resources by industry
The dashboard surfaces resources and organizations that may be a good fit for an innovation with impact. It’s also a helpful way to identify abundance or gaps in resources in impact areas, sectors, and/or geographies. In a future version, a recommendation engine will suggest related filters and searches.
Screenshots of three of the filtering options in NewImpact Wiki Dashboard. Click image for expanded view.
At NewImpact we often start a solutioning exercise by exploring who is ‘on the team’, or, put another way, who has a footprint in a given impact area, be it positive or negative.
Filtering by impact area in the NewImpact Wiki Dashboard populates a word cloud and tables with organizations ‘on the team’ from all sectors (depending upon the filters set) and information about each organization’s programs and resources.
Screenshot of organization word cloud in NewImpact Wiki Dashboard. Click image for expanded view.
Screenshot of table with organizations, programs and resources in NewImpact Wiki Dashboard. Click image for expanded view.
Using the resource and dataset visualizations in the dashboard, you can drill down into resources and data sets to find resources that match your needs OR explore the range of resources and datasets to find patterns and opportunities.
Screenshot of resource and dataset visualizations in NewImpact Wiki Dashboard. Click image for expanded view.
Using the resource and dataset visualizations in the dashboard, you can drill down into resources and data sets to find resources that match your needs OR explore the range of resources and datasets to find patterns and opportunities.
Screenshot impact area visualizations in NewImpact Wiki Dashboard. Click image for expanded view.
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Organization Name - Name of organization
Organization Address - Street address of organization
Organization Description - Description of organization - what org does, mission/purpose, services or products.
Industry Code - NTEE or NAISc Code
Program Name - Name of program.
Program Description - Program description - mission/purpose, services or products, population served.
Child Organization Name - Name of child org.
Child Organization Description - Child org. description - mission/purpose, services or products, population served.
Impact Area(s) - SDG and SPI indicators (planning to include more impact framework(s).
Sector - Sector of org (public, social or private).
Sector Level Name - Name if public(e.g. King County).
Resource Category - Category of Resource (e.g. 3-D printers, meeting rooms, instructors, or grant writing expertise).
Resource Description - Detailed description of Resource (e.g. Spanish speaking instructors).
Resource Count - Count of Resources.
Dataset Category - Category of Dataset (e.g. public building permit database, recipe database).
Dataset Type - Open (accessible) or closed.
Dataset URL - URL for open Datasets.
Region Served - Region served by organization or program.
Population Served - Population served by organization or program.
Last Updated
Created By
Updated By
Tag Status - Completeness of mapping.
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Hosted on AWS built with Javascript, Postgres, Elastic Index, Kibana Code available on GitHub
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Current:
Data is relatively sparse and limited to what has been mapped via NewImpact efforts and projects.
Manual data entry to add resources to directory.
Find resources, datasets and orgs by filtering on SDG, SPI, HQ location.
Clunky and slow visualization tool that requires some understanding of the data structure.
No community element.
Functionality limited to what we can develop.
Separate editing and data visualization/exploration interfaces.
English language only/US only.
Data created and accessed exclusively in tool.
Future:
Expansive rich data about all orgs (Wikipedia level of coverage).
Streamlined mapping with technology assists for manual edits; automated website extraction and ML mapping to build out directory.
Find resources, datasets and orgs based on any facet of the data; AI-aided ‘match-making’ for finding resources.
Flexible user-friendly zippy interface to explore all facets of the data without requiring understanding of the data structure.
Support a global community; collective resource and solution finding.
Open-source tool with contributors to the codebase.
Open access to integrated editing and data exploration interfaces.
Support multiple languages/additional countries.
API’s support data integration with NewImpact tools and others.
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Database
Assess current architecture and make recommendations.
Query optimization.
Information architecture and data science
Assess data structure and make recommendations.
Assess data visualizations and make recommendations.
Help implementing recommendations.
Scrape data from of organization websites.
Process and analyze organization website data to map resources and impact areas and extract insights.
Self-training ML to support expanding resource taxonomy.
Aid in resource match-making.
Design
Development (full-stack)
Technology stack review and recommendations
TLDR
NewImpact Wiki is a free online directory of orgs and their resources
Designed to share and help uncover strategic resources and ‘teammates’ via cloud based forms and visualizations
Data tagged with geography, population served, and impact area
Currently wiki data is primarily created and maintained by contributors
NewImpact Wiki current data:
794,838 organizations mapped to impact areas
76,559 mapped resources
54,947 mapped datasets
Needs Addressed by NewImpact Wiki
Innovators looking for aligned orgs:
How can I find orgs and programs from all sectors with a footprint in my impact area?
What other impact areas might lead to more connections, opportunities and resources?
Where are there potential partners or allies locally or in other regions?
Who else is working in this impact are at scaleor with this specific population?
How can my organization become part of a tri-sector solution?
Innovators looking for resources & data:
What resources and data from all sectors might I repurpose and realign for impact?
What does the regional or sectoral landscape of resources (and orgs) for my impact area look like?
Where can I find specific resources needed for my business model?
What resources and data are available in ‘x’ industry?
Where are there resource and data gaps that may represent opportunities?
