Frequently Asked Questions

  • Beacon is a free, web-based geospatial data platform developed by DataKind. It allows users to explore public data, upload and analyze their own data, create map analyses, and collaborate with teammates around place-based decision making.

  • Beacon is designed to help community-based organizations, practitioners, policymakers, funders, researchers, and other stakeholders explore place-based data, combine public and private datasets, and generate actionable insights about the communities they serve.

  • Beacon is designed for organizations and teams working in areas such as community development, economic mobility, affordable housing, food access, small business support, public health, philanthropy, and other community-serving sectors.

  • Beacon can help users identify geographic patterns, compare communities, understand trends and disparities, support outreach planning, inform investments, and combine organizational data with public indicators to support decision making.

  • Beacon is currently accessible as a web application and is optimized for desktop use.

Purpose and Functionality

  • Click the "Sign Up" button on the top right corner, follow the prompts, and enter your details. If you are trying to join a team, please ask that team owner to send you an invite so that you may access your team’s assets.

  • Yes, SSO is available for Google and Microsoft email addresses.

  • Head over to our Getting Started page for video walkthroughs, step-by-step guides, and best practices

  • Please report any issues using the feedback form or button.

  • Navigate to our Getting Started page for a video demonstration of the tool, or reach out to our team via beacon@datakind.org for a live demonstration.

  • Beacon is currently available free of charge.

Account and Navigation

  • Public data is accessible at Census tract, ZIP code (ZCTA), county, and congressional district levels. Uploaded data can also be visualized at individual address levels.

  • On the map analysis page, select the geographic level to visualize at, then use the dropdown menu or search bar to choose categories of indicators and select the indicators you would like to visualize. You may select up to 3 boundary indicators to layer on the map.

    Otherwise you may build and download a dataset using our dataset builder flow.

  • Try refreshing the page or signing out and back in. Report persistent issues to the development team using the feedback button on each site page.

  • Beacon allows multiple ways to export your work on our platform. On the map analysis page, you may download an image of the map, indicator cards, and legend as a .png file. Also on the map analysis page, you can download a dataset of the data displayed on the map as a .csv file. Lastly, you can use our Dataset Builder flow to customize and download any of our publicly available data.

  • Beacon currently includes public indicators across topics such as economic security, health, food access and nutrition, housing and infrastructure, and population and demographics. The Data Dictionary provides additional detail about available datasets and methodologies.

  • Data updates will occur within 3 months of the refresh in the data source. Users should be aware that updates may be delayed due to the nature of secondary data sources. Users can also manage and update their own uploaded data through the uploader function at any cadence they need: daily, weekly, monthly, etc.

  • Data updates will occur within 3 months of the refresh in the data source. Any change or removal to data sources will be assessed by DataKind. Check the Data Dictionary to ensure the data indicator you’re looking for is still available.

  • DataKind Beacon aims to ingest and make public datasets available with minimal transformation to the original source data. In some cases, data may be missing for certain geographies, time periods, or indicators because the original source data itself is incomplete or unavailable.

    If you believe data displayed in Beacon does not accurately reflect the original source dataset, please contact our team using the feedback button.

  • Currently, customization options are limited, but we are always looking for feedback on enhancements we can provide. Please submit a feature request using the feedback button.

  • Yes, users are able to upload data from any other source, share it with team members, and display it on the map analysis page.

  • Navigate to the Upload Data Guide to see a step-by-step guide and best practices on how to upload your data to Beacon.

  • [Answer to come]

  • Users can delete their data at any time. Select “Indicators” from the navigation menu. Users will see what datasets have been uploaded. Within the dataset row, click the button in the “Delete Indicator” column, and it will be removed from Beacon.

Data and Visualization