Earth OutreachSometimes nonprofits need a little technical help from a developer
Over the years, amazing maps have been created from the public benefit sector in key
areas, including environmental conservation, human rights, public health, and more.
Google Earth Outreach Developer Grants aim to spur the development of more stellar
examples of how Google mapping technologies can help non-profits in their work by
awarding funding for the technical development of mapping projects.
To find recommended developers that have published mapping projects for public benefit causes (including some of the same developers who helped make the below projects possible), check out our Developer Marketplace.
This year, we encourage nonprofits to explore our latest and greatest mapping technologies including Google Maps Engine. Learn more about our tools on the Explore Tools page.
2012 Developer Grantees
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The Royal Canadian Geographical Society
The idea: A Developing World: a Maps API application containing UN Human Development Index data
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Clinton Health Access Initiative
The idea: Getting to Zero in Southern Africa: A Temporal and Spatial Map of Malaria Progress
Project coming soon!
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SamSamWater Foundation
The idea: SamSam Rainwater Harvesting Tool using Google Maps
Project coming soon!
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Wild South
The idea: Cherokee Trails: Google Earth tours, a map, and an Android app to document the struggle of the Cherokee to remain in their homeland
Project coming soon!
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Internews
The idea: Climate Commons Map: a Maps API application documenting local impacts and adaptations to climate change in the US.
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Vanishing Worlds Foundation / World Oral Literature Project / Language Landscape
The idea: Language Landscape: an Extensible Model for Mapping Language Dynamics
Project coming soon!
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The Jane Goodall Institute
The idea: Scaling Up and Sharing Dynamically Generated Maps for Community Based Forest & Wildlife Monitoring
Project coming soon!
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Atlantic Public Media
The idea: Create a Google Earth tour about the Monarch Butterfly Migration for the podcast One Species at a Time from the Encyclopedia of Life.
Project coming soon!
2011 Developer Grantees
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Atlantic Public Media
The idea: Create Google Earth tours about the diversity of life for the podcast One Species at a Time from the Encyclopedia of Life.
The impact: Distributed via the Encyclopedia of Life's podcast series "One Species at a Time" and posted on websites including the Smithsonian Ocean Portal, Citizen Science Quarterly, Talking Science Blog, Mashable.com, and Discovery News, resulting in 20,000+ You Tube views to the two tours.
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World Resources Institute
The idea: Create a Google Earth Tour exploring the Reefs at Risk Revisited maps of threats to coral reefs around the world; illustrated with dynamic footage of reef ecosystems and descriptions of the biodiversity and value of reefs in each of the six major coral reef regions.
The impact: The month that the video was released, the WRI YouTube channel received the highest number of video views since the channel was launched in October 2007.
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The Nature Conservancy
The idea: Enhance their Adopt-an-Acre program by allowing donors to select a plot of land to adopt using Google Earth or Maps.
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Pepperwood Foundation on behalf of iNaturalist.org
The idea: Create an iNaturalist mobile application for Android to allow citizen naturalists with Android devices to capture geo-located observations of plants and animals to the online iNaturalist platform.
The impact: The Android app has been installed on 2000 devices and the number of scientific-grade research observations submitted has more than quadrupled.
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Widecast Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle Conservation Network - Bonaire
The idea: Develop the "The Great Migration Game" map to follow the movements of an individual sea turtle and make tracking her journey interactive for students on the nearby island of Bonaire.
The impact: Over 100 high school students on the tiny island of Bonaire participated in the contest. Website traffic increased five times over while students followed the sea turtle's live migration.
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HabitatMap, Inc.
The idea: Build AirCasting, a platform for recording, mapping, and sharing health and environmental data using your Android device.
The impact: AirCasting has fostered a DIY environmental monitoring community which maps thousands of readings a month from enviro-sense and bio-sense devices and visualizes the measurements using LED clothing and accessories.
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International Rivers
The idea: Create a Google Earth tour and video which allows viewers to explore why dams are not the right answer to climate change, by learning about topics such as reservoir emissions, dam safety, and adaptation while visiting real case studies in Africa, the Himalayas and the Amazon
The impact: The You Tube video was the most-liked and the most-shared video on the International Rivers channel. Twitter subscribers increased 228% since launch.
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Water for People
The idea: Develop the SanMap application to support sanitation-related businesses in urban African cities.
The impact: Sanmap.org is a useful communication tool internally and between other development colleagues in the sanitation sector to better understand factors that affect the sanitation business, such as population density, soil type, topography, etc.
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Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy
The idea: Create a Google Earth tour, "The Story of Crissy Field: the transformation of an urban park in Google Earth" for the 10th Anniversary of the restoration of Crissy Field.
The impact: Hundreds of educators and youth have used the video in trainings and Crissy Field storytelling sessions at the Crissy Field Center’s media lab to raise awareness about Crissy Field’s fascinating history.
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The HALO Trust
The idea: Create narrated Google Earth tours to take the viewer on a visit to minefields in Angola and Cambodia, sharing the story of two mine-affected countries and the work of the world’s largest humanitarian landmine clearance organization.
The impact: The day after the launch of the tours, the HALO Trust saw the most traffic to their US & UK websites over the entire calendar year.
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World Wildlife Fund and Eyes on the Forest
The idea: Build an interactive map of Sumatra's conservation and carbon values and the island's key threat -- deforestation. Learn more in the case study.
The impact: 17 out of 20 store chains stopped carrying Asia Pulp & Paper products as a result of the Don't Flush Tiger Forests Campaign.
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California Academy of Sciences
The idea: Create "A Global Water Story", a project that translates immersive programming about water from the Planetarium to Google Earth.
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David Suzuki Foundation
The idea: Build a Natural Capital map application for southern Ontario, Canada, that allows viewers to draw a shape on the map and find out the economic value of ecological services nature provides in that area.
The impact: The map has allowed us to leverage almost $100,000 CDN from two major funders and has been used to bolster fundraising efforts for other mapping-related projects.
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Save the Elephants
The idea: Develop "Tracking Animals for Conservation: Real-time mapping in the field on Android and Publishing Elephant Tracking Data in Fusion Tables".
The impact: National Geographic’s news channel “A Voice for Elephants” features ElephantsinPeril.org as a top link on the page. The long-term goal is for further development of similar trusted partnerships with additional news organizations.