Habitat for Humanity Leverages Spatial ETL

08 May 2008, 11:13pm

Vancouver, BC, May 8, 2008 - Habitat for Humanity has received FME, the recognized standard in spatial ETL, through Safe Software’s Software Grant Program. Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity will use FME to provide project planners and volunteers with a unified view of the spatial data they need to fulfill Habitat’s mandate to provide affordable housing for Dallas families in need.

"Today using FME, we are able to make our data usable much faster, increasing our efficiency in planning upcoming housing projects and focusing our volunteer efforts on building decent housing for deserving families," says Cyndy Lutz, Director of Real Estate at Dallas Habitat.

Habitat will use FME to bring information together into a single, unified dataset that they will use to support neighborhood planning, construction proposal and fundraising efforts. City-maintained ESRI Shape files will be gathered using web services through FME and combined with Habitat’s own land parcel information located in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. In addition to outputting Shape files, Habitat also uses FME to output their data into KML for a visual presentation of their spatial data for use in fundraising efforts and volunteer kick-off events.

"We’re pleased to see Safe’s Software Grant Program helping charitable organizations like Habitat for Humanity make a true difference in our world," says Don Murray, President of Safe Software.

Safe Software’s Software Grant Program offers educational institutions and researchers, including non-profit organizations who conduct research, with the powerful spatial data translation, transformation, and integration capabilities of FME at no cost. Since its inception five years ago, the program has provided FME to 300 organizations.

www.safe.com

Geo: International