Community Fact Finder

The California State Parks Community Fact Finder:
Innovative Technology from the Office of Grants and Local Services 

California State Parks Community Fact Finder   
For information about upcoming data releases, please email SCORP@parks.ca.gov. 

What is the Community Fact Finder and why was it created?
This web based tool combines mapping and demographic data to calculate the total population, median household income, number of people below poverty, and ratio of park acres per 1,000 residents within a half-mile radius of any project location in California.

This data is required to evaluate grant applications for the $368,000,000 Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program of 2008, an exciting new grant program prioritizing the creation of new parks in park deficient, economically disadvantaged communities. 

The Community Fact Finder provides the following benefits: 

Fair and Consistent Grant Process:  Enables a consistent method for identifying median household income, number of residents below poverty, and ratio of park acres per 1,000 residents, within a half-mile radius of any project location throughout California.  

Technical assistance:  Gives applicants a user-friendly resource for all required data in a one-stop location.  The data above would normally require complicated, multi-layered research. 

Why is the half-mile radius used?
The priority is to fund projects in critically underserved communities.  
 The use of the half-mile radius is two-fold.

1. Help steer applicants towards placing projects in areas that best meet the program's highest priority.
2. Uniformly quantify the ratio of park space per 1,000 residents, number of residents below poverty, and the median household income in proximity to projects using consistent data available statewide.

If the radius were larger, it could encompass higher income areas, or greater park acreage areas, which would disadvantage or disqualify many statewide applications.