My Map Quest

A project that began back in July, my map quest is finally over! In a little under a month's time, I have successfully mapped all current Ohio Benefit Bank sites in my 7-county region, as well as all of the potential OBB sites from the database I created. This project includes both paper and electronic copies of the maps to show where OBB sites are currently/potentially located.

In most counties, I've found that the bigger metropolitan areas hold the majority of the counties' current and potential sites, with considerable coverage gaps in the rural areas and small towns. This picture is an example of just that--the cluster of stars is in downtown Dayton, while the rest of Montgomery County has few current/potential OBB sites.

This finding isn't a big surprise--after all, I did discover many of the potential sites on my list via internet searches and online directories. Non-profit agencies in smaller, more rural towns tend not to have as much funding and capacity as some of the bigger, more established agencies to advertise their services online.

Of course this doesn't mean that these agencies are any less important than those with websites. In fact, it is these rural agencies that we are most interested in, as they can provide their local citizens access to the Ohio Benefit Bank without requiring them to drive half an hour into a big city.

So how will I find these potential sites among the small towns and rural corn fields? I have a couple of ideas. First, I hope to use some networking to my advantage. Next month we will begin hosting local information sessions for the organizations in each county to learn more about the Ohio Benefit Bank. I can ask the representatives from the agencies in attendance to help identify other local, perhaps rural, agencies not present.

Secondly, I suppose I will need to just get out there and explore! When I'm in each of these counties doing a training or other activity, I can stop and visit some of these little towns to see who/what is there. I've learned that people in Southern Ohio prefer more personal, face-to-face contact for this type of thing anyway, so this should work out alright.

Any other ideas on how to find and develop rural agencies from each county to be OBB sites? I'd love to hear them!