The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission launched a regional database in January in the hopes of providing the public with easy access to information about their communities.
The commission worked with several foundations to fund the site, pioneervalleydata.org, including the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, the MassMutual Foundation and the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation.
Katie Allan Zobel, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, said the idea for the project has been around since 2010. According to Zobel, it was based on a State of the People report created following the 2010 census that created a data profile for each municipality in the area.
“People really liked it, but one book isn’t enough,” Zobel said.
Zobel said the three main foundations funding the project met about 18 months ago to create a financial plan to get it off the ground. Funders met weekly with members of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, including Molly Goren-Watts, the principal project manager.
The website went through beta testing in the fall and became publicly available on Jan. 9.
“I think of this as beta mode two,” Zobel said.
Goren-Watts said that the site was created to be useful to anyone. Nonprofits and public officials have already reported using the data to put together grant proposals. The interface was designed to be user-friendly to make data collection easier.
Goren-Watts highlights the fact that the website is easy to interact with and very visual.
“The huge benefit of this is it’s easy to access and all in one place,” said Goren-Watts.
Zobel said that this is not just a site that has gone up and will be forgotten. Instead, she said the business model and the database itself are both constantly evolving. Goren-Watts said they already have a lot of users and have been getting plenty of feedback on what works and what doesn’t.
Zobel said they have plans to maintain and update as needed throughout the year. A feedback page on the site allows users to fill out a survey and suggest improvements.
“We want people to use that feature and tell us what they are doing,” said Zobel.
On top of just launching the database, both Zobel and Goren-Watts said they would be offering training courses on how to use the site.
“Data is only numbers, it is really about how people are using it,” Zobel said.
Funding for training sessions would be provided by the same foundations who funded the website.
“The Pioneer Valley is lucky as a community to have foundations that see the value of a project like this,” Goren-Watts said.