Mapping Prejudice

What Mapping Prejudice does

Mapping Prejudice is a public history and civic technology research project operated within the University of Minnesota Libraries (specifically the John R. Borchert Map Library). Founded in 2016 by Kirsten Delegard, Kevin Ehrman-Solberg, and Ryan Mattke, the project identifies and maps racial covenants—restrictive clauses historically embedded in property deeds to prevent non-White people from buying or occupying land—across multiple U.S. geographies. The core platform combines crowdsourced deed transcription via the Zooniverse platform, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) workflows, an internal software tool called the Deed Machine, and interactive web mapping delivered through ArcGIS StoryMaps. Volunteers have documented more than 42,000 racial covenants across seven Minnesota counties, plus Milwaukee County (Wisconsin), and Washington, D.C., with 14,000+ community map makers contributing over 40,000 volunteer hours and reviewing 761,755+ deeds.

The project's product suite includes a searchable interactive covenant map, downloadable CSV and shapefile datasets hosted on GitHub and the University of Minnesota's Digital Conservancy, static cartography PDFs, narrative StoryMaps, and supporting educational resources (Educator's Guide, Awareness to Action Guide, Reparations Guide). Adjacent programs include the Community Fellows Program supporting local housing-justice change-makers and the Our Histories Are Healing workshop series, which embeds somatic and restorative practices in historical recovery work for Black and Brown community members. Mapping Prejudice does not monetize its outputs; all data, maps, and educational materials are provided free of charge under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. The project is sustained by grant funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the City of Minneapolis, multiple family and regional foundations, the Minneapolis and St. Paul Area Associations of Realtors, and private donations. It is not a commercial enterprise and operates without AI/ML capabilities.

Name

Mapping Prejudice

Legal name

Regents of the University of Minnesota

Website

https://mappingprejudice.umn.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Mapping Prejudice is a University of Minnesota Libraries research project that identifies and maps racial covenants in U.S. property deeds using crowdsourced transcription and GIS. It serves Black and Brown communities, academic researchers, K-12 educators, homeowners, and policymakers with free interactive maps, datasets, and educational resources.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Public History Research

NAICS

Surveying and Mapping (except Geophysical) Services (541370), Historical Sites (712120)

akta.pro primary industry

Racial & Ethnic Justice Organizations (BPAGAFAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Housing Policy, Standards & Fair Housing Enforcement (BPAIANAG), Data Discovery, Classification & Labeling (HDADAFAF)

Keywords

• Racial covenant mapping
• Digital humanities platform
• Historical property research
• GIS mapping platform
• Public history research

Headquarters

HQ city

Minneapolis

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Grant funding: Primary funding from foundations and government agencies including The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and various private foundations. The project began in 2016 with seed funding from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs and University of Minnesota sources.
2. Donations: The project accepts donations from private citizens, corporations, and community organizations. Donations support responsive community needs, conference travel, printed materials, computers, and student support.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Mapping Prejudice identifies and maps racial covenants — restrictive clauses historically embedded in property deeds to prevent non-White people from buying or occupying land — and visualizes the resulting patterns of structural racism in the built environment. The project delivers an interactive web map, downloadable datasets, static cartography, narrative story maps, and educational resources, supported by a volunteer crowdsourced transcription methodology and hosted by the University of Minnesota Libraries.

Product overview

Mapping Prejudice is a public history and civic technology project operated by the University of Minnesota Libraries that identifies and maps racial covenants—restrictive clauses embedded in property deeds to prevent non-White people from buying or occupying land. The core product is a searchable interactive map displaying over 34,000 documented racial covenants in Minnesota and beyond, powered by volunteer-generated data collected through the Zooniverse crowdsourcing platform. The platform includes downloadable datasets (CSV, shapefiles) available via GitHub and institutional repository, static cartography PDFs, and narrative story content delivered through ArcGIS StoryMaps. Supporting offerings include the Our Histories Are Healing workshop program (trauma-informed sessions for Black and Brown community members), Community Fellows Program (supporting local change-makers), and educational resources (Educator's Guide, Awareness to Action Guide, Reparations Guide). The project operates entirely through volunteer labor and publicly available tools without any AI/ML capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Interactive Covenant Map Searchable web-based map displaying racial covenants across Hennepin County, Ramsey County, and surrounding areas. Users can zoom into neighborhoods, click on property parcels, and view covenant text and recording dates. The map currently shows over 34,000 Minnesota racial covenants documented by volunteers.
• Covenant Datasets (Downloadable) Downloadable datasets of racial covenants in spreadsheet (CSV) and geospatial (shapefile) formats. Covers seven Minnesota counties plus Milwaukee County, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia. Available via GitHub repository and University of Minnesota Libraries Digital Conservancy.
• Static Cartography Suite of static cartography PDFs visualizing the segregative impact of covenants on Black residents, the relationship to freeway construction, contemporary demographics, and the overall extent and pattern of racial covenants in Hennepin County.
• Community Mapping Sessions Virtual volunteer sessions held twice monthly on Wednesdays via Zoom where participants learn to read property deeds and transcribe covenant information. Over 13,250 community members have participated, reviewing 761,755 deeds.
• Our Histories Are Healing Participant-focused workshop series designed specifically for Black and Brown community members, embedding somatic and restorative practices into historical recovery work. Partnership with Render Free provides 90-minute workshops centering the Black experience around housing discrimination and racial covenants history.
• Educator's Guide PDF guide suggesting ways teachers can use Mapping Prejudice in classroom settings, providing context and listing available public online resources for educators.
• Awareness to Action Guide PDF guide for confronting modern racism in housing, policy, and communities, serving as a resource for actionable steps following awareness of covenant history.
• Story Maps (Narrative Content) Long-form narrative content exploring human stories behind the covenant data, including Mapping Thornton's Boarding House, Bring Back 6th Avenue, Greenspace White Space, The House the U Built, Race War in Linden Hills, and others. Delivered via the ArcGIS StoryMaps platform.
• Reparations Guide PDF resource guide providing information on reparations efforts related to racial covenants and housing discrimination.
• Community Fellows Program Fellowship program supporting local change-makers doing work for racial equity and housing justice. Fellows receive support from Mapping Prejudice resources to advance their initiatives. The program centers community fellows who are directly impacted by housing discrimination history.

Quantifiable outcome

• 42,000+ racial covenants identified and mapped
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• University of Minnesota LibrariescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2016The host institution providing infrastructure, administrative support, and ongoing in-kind support. The project is based in the John R. Borchert Map Library.
• Just DeedscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCoalition providing free legal and title services to help homeowners discharge racial covenants from their property deeds. Mapping Prejudice refers homeowners to Just Deeds.
• Mapping Racism and Resistance in MilwaukeecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSister project representing the first effort to comprehensively document and map all racial covenants in Milwaukee County.
• National Covenants Research CoalitioncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCoalition of researchers and community members working to document the history of exclusion and reckon with its legacy.
• Welcoming the Dear Neighbor?coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSister project at St. Catherine University engaging community members around racial covenant history and data in Ramsey County.
• Minnesota TransformmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity of Minnesota initiative building transformative justice through public humanities across the state.
• Heritage Studies and Public History Program, University of MinnesotamajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAcademic program training future public historians; co-created Owning Up exhibit on racism and housing.
• Render FreecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBlack-led coaching business partnering on 'Our Histories Are Healing' workshops that embed somatic and restorative practices.
• NAACP Rochester BranchmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerLeading a covenant mapping project in Olmsted County as part of the national research effort.
• Prologue DCmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerDC-based project 'Mapping Segregation' providing resource for historians, activists, and educators on race and gentrification.
• Institute for Advanced Study, University of MinnesotamajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerBuilding interdisciplinary networks advancing critical conversations on racial justice.
• USpatial, University of MinnesotamajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAdvancing GIS, remote sensing, and spatial computing expertise across the University.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Historyapolis: Public history project founded by Mapping Prejudice Project Director Kirsten Delegard. Sister project exploring Minneapolis history through narrative content; shares leadership, audience, and approach to community-engaged public history.

Direct peers

• Just Deeds: Coalition providing free legal/title services to homeowners to discharge racial covenants. Most directly comparable as an operational partner addressing the same covenant issue from the legal remediation side that Mapping Prejudice addresses from the data/documentation side.
• Welcoming the Dear Neighbor?: Sister project at St. Catherine University engaging community members around racial covenant history in Ramsey County. Direct peer working on adjacent county with same mission and methodology.
• Mapping Racism and Resistance in Milwaukee: Sister project in Milwaukee County explicitly modeled on Mapping Prejudice's methodology. Direct peer in mission, technology, and approach; represents the first expansion of the MP template to another metro.
• Mapping Segregation (Prologue DC): DC-based project providing a resource for historians, activists, and educators on race and gentrification. Sister project under the National Covenants Research Coalition, working on the same covenant/segregation dataset mission in a different geography.

Regional players

• African American Heritage Preservation Foundation: Minnesota-based nonprofit focused on preserving African American heritage sites and history. Comparable in mission of documenting Black history in the built environment, though focused on physical preservation rather than covenant mapping.
• NAACP Rochester Branch: Local NAACP branch leading the Olmsted County covenant mapping project as part of the National Covenants Research Coalition. Comparable in delivering covenant-mapping work in a specific region using MP's methodology.

Broad incumbents

• Enterprise Community Partners: National nonprofit focused on affordable housing and community development. Comparable in mission alignment with housing justice and reparative policy work; operates at much larger scale with a developer/funder model.
• Urban Institute: Major research organization producing housing discrimination and equity research at scale. Comparable in producing housing-policy data and research consumed by policymakers, though at much larger scale and broader scope.
• National Fair Housing Alliance: The leading national fair housing advocacy and enforcement organization. Comparable in the broader fair-housing and racial justice space, but operates as a nationwide policy/litigation organization rather than a community-driven data project.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/UMNLibraries/mp-us-racial-covenants
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/mapping-prejudice

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Mapping Prejudice