It might be a silly question, but what does the Diocese of California's response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) look like? Can you visualize all of the different relationships that are growing out of our commitment to end poverty, disease, and degradation of the climate? When you try to imagine it, does the problem seem way too big and overwhelming? Are all of those in need simply too far away for us to help?

Well, one way to see (visually) how Episcopalians in the San Francisco Bay Area are responding to the global environmental crisis and the needs of the world's poor might be to draw a map, and show where connections are being made: Oakland and Uganda; Walnut Creek and Honduras; San Francisco and El Salvador; and that is exactly what Kevin Jones, entrepreneurial mapper of social networks and member of Holy Innocents, San Francisco, recommends. In fact, Jones has come up with a way to show you that the problems are not insurmountable and that there are people you know who are doing great things to achieve the MDGs. The MDG Mapping Project is his solution.
 

The MDG Mapping Project (which will go online in the very near future at mdg.episcopalbayarea.org) uses Google's maps and blogging software to show connections, to tell the stories of people in need and the stories of people responding to that need. When asked how both maps and blogs together can help Episcopalians help others, Jones says "A map, when it's tied to a story, can help answer a couple of the biggest objections people have about getting involved in MDG work: that the problems are too big, and too far away."
In response to the objection that these problems are simply too grand in scale, Jones says, "the best way to make a complex story simple is by visualization."

Jones is no stranger to mapping — in fact, he has spent most of his career mapping complex systems and helping others easily see points of entry. During the early stages of the dot.com boom, Jones began mapping how emerging electronic markets were using the internet as an intermediary to bring together fractured groups of sellers and buyers. At the same time, he found it was important to tell the stories of innovators in this new marketplace, and a newsletter called Net Market Makers was born. Net Market Makers was later sold to media giant Jupiter Media Metrix.

More recently, Jones has taken on projects that help socially conscious investors recognize where their money might do the most good. As a principal at Good Capital (which was featured in the April 23, 2007 issue of Forbes Magazine; www.goodcap.net), and founder of xigi (pronounced "ziggy," www.xigi.net) Jones and his partners help others see where socially conscious investors and entrepreneurs are making connections and changing the world; they do this by mapping relationships and explaining the connections between social entrepreneurs, their partners and investors.

The technology used to achieve both the mapping and storytelling of MDG work might sound overwhelming -- like you might need an engineering degree in order to use the MDG maps. Not so, says Jones. "If you can cut and paste a block of text in a Microsoft Word document, you can use the MDG Maps."

The idea is that if you are doing work that helps to achieve one of the goals of Millennium Development, you can go online and easily map the connection and then blog about why this work is important, who is involved, and how others can be involved. And the storytelling is two-way. In other words, not only can Episcopalians in the Diocese of California go online and tell their stories, but people on the ground in developing countries working in AIDS clinics in Honduras or digging wells for clean water in Zambia can make entries to the MDG Map as well.

"We want the information to be bidirectional," says Jones. "We live in a postcolonial world, and that will be illustrated through a two-way platform."

The Diocese of California is partnering with Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (EGR) to bring the MDG Map to the broader church. According to the Rev. Mike Kinman, Executive Director of EGR, the MDG Map helps people get past the questions: What can one person do? What can one congregation do?

"One of the things that I've found in the Church as I travel around," says Kinman, "is that there is so much fabulous ministry going on, and so much of it is happening in isolation. People just don't know what's out there. The MDG Map solves that problem."

And perhaps more important for Kinman is that the MDG Map can be inspirational. "The way it can spark ideas is really important. The mapping lets people know that there is a lot that they can do because there are people already doing it."

So, start watching DioBytes (the eNewsletter of the Diocese of California) or the diocesan website for information about the launch of mdg.episcopalbayarea.org.