---
redirect_from: /2014/01/mapping-the-open-spending-data-community/
title: Mapping the Open Spending Data Community
authors:
- Neil Ashton
---
[caption id="attachment_1779" align="aligncenter" width="669"]<a href="http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/"><img src="{{ site.baseurl }}/img/blog/2013/12/mappingcommunity.jpg" alt="Mapping the Open Spending Data Community" width="669" height="503" class="size-full wp-image-1779" /></a> Mapping the Open Spending Data Community[/caption]<!--magazine.image = {{ site.baseurl }}/img/blog/2013/12/mappingcommunity.jpg -->

We're pleased to announce the official release of "[Mapping the Open Spending Data Community](http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/)" by [Anders Pedersen](http://okfn.org/members/anderspeders/) and [Lucy Chambers](http://okfn.org/members/lucychambers), an in-depth look at how citizens, journalists, and civil society organisations around the world are using data on government finances to further their civic missions.

The investigation began in 2012 with three goals:

* To identify Civil Society organisations (CSOs) around the world who are interested in working with government financial data
* To connect these CSOs with each other, with open data communities, and with other key stakeholders to exchange knowledge, experiences, and best practices in relation to spending data
* To discover how CSOs currently work with spending data, how they would like to use it, and what they would like to achieve

This report is the result. It brings together key case studies from organisations who have done pioneering work in using technology to work with public finance data in each of [budgets][budgets], [spending][spending], and [procurements][procurements], and it presents a curated [selection of tools][tools] and other advice in an [appendix][appendix].

[budgets]: http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/case-studies-budgets/
[spending]: http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/case-studies-spending/
[procurements]: http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/case-studies-procurements/
[tools]: http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/appendix/tool-ecosystem/
[appendix]: http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/appendix/

As part of this research, we've also produced a four-part video series "[Athens to Berlin][a2b]", which you can watch to meet some of the fascinating characters in the world of CSOs working with government spending data and to learn firsthand about their successes and their challenges.

[a2b]: http://community.openspending.org/research/mappingcommunity/introduction/videos/

