District Mapper

User Guide

From spreadsheet to district map, step by step. If you can maintain a contact list, you can use District Mapper.

1. Start with a file — or the demo

Open the app and you'll find the demo dataset already on the map: 450 synthetic members of a fictional NYC-area organization. Every name, address, and email is invented. Explore freely — nothing you do to the demo touches real people.

Ready for your own data? Click + Add New Data and upload a CSV or Excel file with one row per person. If your file has addresses, they're converted to map coordinates automatically. If it already has latitude and longitude columns, that step is skipped — and no address ever leaves the tool.

2. Review before anything is saved

Before your data is stored, District Mapper shows you which columns look like personal information and asks what to do with each one: keep it, discard it, or encrypt it. Your choices can be saved as a standing policy for your organization.

Two things are refused outright, on every tier: columns that look like Social Security numbers or bank account details. They are dropped and clearly reported. Read more in the Data & Privacy Policy.

3. Pick your boundaries

Use the sidebar to turn on the boundaries that matter to you: congressional districts, state senate and assembly, school districts, tribal areas, and city council districts for 16 major cities. Every district shades by how many of your records fall inside it, and a breakdown table shows the counts.

4. Click a district

Click any district to see how your own fields — program, status, engagement, whatever your spreadsheet holds — distribute among the people inside it. Names and emails are never charted. Districts with fewer than ten of your records show a total only, never a breakdown; small groups deserve that protection.

5. Export and share

Signed-in accounts can download the original spreadsheet enriched with every district assignment (CSV). Advocate accounts add a formatted PDF report, a branded district one-pager built for meetings, an AI-written plain-language summary, and Policy Pulse — legislation tracking matched to your mission. See what each tier includes on the pricing page.

Questions?

Write to charles@north-arrow.org — a person reads it.