Data for Public Good

The Hawaiʻi Funding Project assembles disparate funding data into a clear, consolidated view of how public resources flow into and across Hawaiʻi.

We are working to close the gap between data and the community leaders best positioned to act on it.

The Infrastructure Gap

The data is there but the infrastructure to make it accessible is missing.

We are solving for three problems:

1

Public but inaccessible

State budget data is locked in inaccessible formats

2

Labor intensive

Federal funding data is difficult to wrangle and disconnected from local context

3

Viewed in siloes

No platform combines multiple sources into a holistic picture

Our solution: accessibility, integration, and action.

We are starting to fill a major gap in our public data infrastructure, with the hope that it becomes a sustained, locally-driven capacity.

Our Approach

We make the data accessible and community partners make it actionable.

Start with public data

We gather, clean, and transform publicly available data into accessible, usable formats.


Calibrate with community feedback

We share prototypes with community partners, incorporating feedback on what's useful, what's missing, and whether other data sources could unlock deeper insights.


Iterate and improve

This is a process as much as it is a product. We commit to continuous improvement driven by the communities we seek to serve.

Our Tools

Hawaiʻi State Budget Explorer

Navigate the state budget through a series of visualizations built to make the data accessible without technical expertise.

  • 10-year trends

  • Year-over-year changes

  • Fiscal year drill downs to individual programs

Federal Funding in Hawaiʻi

Explore the role of federal funding in Hawaiʻi to learn potential local impacts of federal shifts.

  • Longitudinal trends in obligations

  • Per capita spending

  • Fiscal year drill downs to individual awards

Public Funding Database

Dive into the data by downloading the consolidated, standardized datasets that power our visualization tools.

  • State budget appropriations

  • State contracts

  • Federal funding

Methodology

Explore the sources, decisions, and frameworks behind our tools.

  • Key data sources

  • Cleaning and standardization approach

  • Validation and accuracy checks