Case Study: Village Earth improves census data collection and mapping with Fulcrum

Village Earth increases HUD-recognized population by 81% with Fulcrum

The customer Village Earth, a nonprofit organization, faced significant challenges in collecting accurate household census data on rural Native American reservations, where incomplete records and lack of addressing systems led to chronic undercounting. To support federal funding challenges and ensure statistical accuracy for longitudinal surveys, they needed a reliable method to map households and collect data efficiently across vast, offline areas. They turned to the vendor Fulcrum and its mobile data collection platform to replace outdated paper-based processes.

The solution implemented using Fulcrum involved deploying Android tablets with pre-loaded survey forms and offline maps to a large field crew across five reservations. Fulcrum’s features, such as color-coded status markers, record assignment, and parent-child relationships for household member data, enabled real-time management and high-quality offline data collection. The measurable impact was profound: this digital method produced higher-quality data at a much lower cost than paper surveys, and it built upon Village Earth’s prior successes which had already secured millions in increased federal housing allocations for tribes by successfully challenging official census numbers.

Village Earth