Efforts of community partners recognized with state award

Greenville County has won the 2017 Barrett Lawrimore Memorial Regional Cooperation Award for an innovative partnership in creating imap, an interactive community tool that maps essential human services within the County.

The award, given by the South Carolina Association of Counties (SCAC), recognized the collaborative efforts of Greenville County, Greenville Health System, Furman University, United Way of Greenville County and 2-1-1 to create the community information map, which was unveiled to the public in June.

“The award was for our collective ability to creatively problem-solve and is being lauded as an example for other governments to follow,” says Butch Kirven, Chairman of Greenville County Council.

The map was developed by Greenville County with help from Furman students and professors. Together, the team spent months meeting with local organizations to identify essential services across Greenville County and then used geocoding—an automated process that compares a list of addresses against a database to calculate coordinates—to plot more than 1,000 individual services on the map.

According to the SCAC, the award goes to the county that “represents the best qualities of local government.” Greenville County was lauded for “attention to detail, service to citizens, efficient use of tax dollars, and improvement to quality of life.”

The imap interactive platform allows residents, businesses and organizations to access essential life services such as food, housing, education and health care. It is also used by decision-makers, such as health and public safety officials and county planners, to analyze the spatial distribution of community assets and service areas to identify where services need to be added or enhanced.

To access imap, visit the United Way of Greenville County’s website or go directly to greenvilleimap.com.