MapGive: A coordinated campaign for action

MapGive, part of the Imagery to the Crowd project from the U.S. Department of State’s Humanitarian Information Unit, makes it easy for new volunteers to learn to map in OpenStreetMap and get involved in humanitarian mapping tasks. MapGive is essentially an educational communication campaign designed to lower the barriers to entry for new mappers, simplifying the complex process of learning how to map in OpenStreetMap for humanitarian purposes. MapGive was born from the idea of linking State Department’s social media following with volunteer mapping, essentially trying to turn social media “followers” into social media “do-ers”. Through the MapGive website, we provide newly created educational information and videos on why mapping is important, how to map in the iD editor, how to get involved with humanitarian mapping tasks through the OSM Tasking Manager, and direct links to Imagery to the Crowd mapping tasks. The MapGive campaign will be launched alongside a series of mapping tasks in February 2014. This talk will review elements of the design process, technology, communications strategy, and mapping results of the MapGive project.