OSI-Baltimore, in partnership with the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance (BNIA), has incorporated the data from the Blueprint for Baltimore survey into BNIA’s Open Data Portal. The Blueprint for Baltimore data portal (osiblueprint-bniajfi.hub.arcgis.com) is open to the public.
Launching the portal is the latest step in the Blueprint for Baltimore project, a partnership between OSI-Baltimore and community organizations, including Baltimore Votes, Black Girls Vote, Black Leaders Organizing for Change, CASA, and the No Boundaries Coalition. Data Fellows from those organizations canvassed more than 5,000 Baltimore City residents, focusing on marginalized communities often ignored by traditional polling, and identified residents’ priorities for city leadership.
In February, OSI and partners held a mayoral forum to ask candidates to respond the data gathered in the survey. A forum for City Council President candidates was planned for March 18 but canceled due to COVID-19. Instead, moderators used the questions planned for the forum to conduct remote interviews with the candidates. A second mayoral forum, planned in collaboration with the Stoop Storytelling Series, was moved online and took place May 20th. It was broadcast on WYPR May 26th.
Now that the data is on the Open Data Portal, organizers, advocates, and community members can explore survey responses by neighborhood and various demographic groups and use it to advocate for policies that are responsive to community priorities.
