Leaving a Lasting Legacy
Elizabeth Carroll
Furman University

In order to remain relevant it is essential for a public service organization to keep innovating. We cannot afford to merely maintain the status quo when it comes to “repairing the world.” Just as businesses in the private sector are always improving the way they serve their customers, we in the nonprofit sector must improve the way we serve our cause. This is why my Everett Internship at the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund (LCVEF) has been so extraordinarily significant and rewarding. I am helping to spearhead a new way for the Education Fund to present information to participants in its already successful List Enhancement project; thereby, improving upon a project that is already quite good.

Geographic information systems (GIS) has been around for sometime now, but its myriad uses outside of urban planning and utilities have only recently been realized in many sectors. GIS is essentially mapping…and then some. Rather than looking at data in flat tables and charts, GIS puts data into perspective spatially. It is the digital equivalent of placing push pins on a map on the wall and having a long piece of paper with lots of information attached to the pin.

One of the goals of LCVEF is to aid partner groups to organize voters at the local, state, and federal level in order to change legislatures in a pro-environment way. Adding mapping to the List Enhancement project is how I have personally helped LCVEF accomplish this goal. When I arrived at the LCVEF offices at the beginning of the summer I knew I would using my GIS skills developed at a previous internship, what I didn’t know was that I would be the only person in the office who had any experience with GIS. This was a very new concept for the List Enhancement project; one that had been tossed around for a few years before I got here but had never actually been implemented.

I researched how some of the LCVEF regional field offices had applied GIS to their data in the past, and what had worked and what had not worked. I interviewed both the field staff that had some experience with mapping and those who hadn’t in order to get an idea of how GIS could meet their needs. From there I developed a basic mapping approach that I thought could be used for any state. Using that approach I created some models for the newly compiled Wisconsin List Enhancement data that would be presented to the Wisconsin List Enhancement participants at a Summit the first week of August.

The dilemma one faces when adding to an existing project is ensuring that the addition really improves the project and doesn’t just add bells and whistles. This is especially true in the nonprofit area, where resources are dear. This summer GIS has passed that test. When my maps were presented at the Summit the response was overwhelmingly positive. During the slide show people shouted for the presenter to go back to the slide with the map. As it turns out, the maps told a story that the participants hadn’t seen before. These maps helped the List Summit participants see a pattern that could help them change the face of their state legislature in a pro environment way!

I am so happy to have helped LCVEF to improve the Wisconsin List Enhancement project and I hope they continue to improve future projects by making mapping a permanent fixture. The Everett Public Service Internship Program has given me a rich experience that has allowed me to leave a lasting legacy that serves the cause I find most important to our nation and our world today.