Project Tracker for California Resource Conservation Districts

We developed the RCD Project Tracker as a platform to help RCDs drive engagement and foster strong working partnerships with regional stakeholders. Today RCDs can better track project outcomes and performance measures related to their work. This platform helps them amplify their message to drive public engagement, and facilitate partnerships to enable multi-agency strategic planning.

RCDs administer millions of dollars of private, local, state, and federal conservation program funds to protect and enhance millions of acres of natural and working lands across the state. To help coordinate and streamline this work, the Project Tracker enables RCDs and their partners to capture critical project information, accomplishments, and expenditures over the course of a project’s timeline. Project-level data can then be aggregated by RCD, county, watershed, organization, funding source, project theme, funder, etc. The information is publicly accessible for stakeholders, project partners, funders, and legislators.

This project tracking application was built using our open-source ProjectFirma platform. Since we did not need to start this custom software job from scratch, we were able to deliver a working prototype after just one month of development time. Today, the RCD Project Tracker captures over 300 projects implemented by more than 190 partners focused on improving resiliency to climate change, protecting endangered species, promoting healthy watersheds, and supporting local farms. Its Accomplishments Dashboard summarizes the $45 million invested over the past decade and quantifies accomplishments, such as more than 100,000 agricultural conservation practices being implemented, thousands of tons of greenhouse gas reductions, and hundreds of acre-feet of water conserved.