I’d like to suggest to you a couple of options:

• Your local GIS user group in Washington. Check out WAGISA, and I am sure they can help you out from there
• There is also ORUISA. This is a URISA chapter in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
• Try something like editing data in OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM is like the Wikipedia for maps. It’s open to the public to edit and contribute. There are also mapathons for this. These are meetups where people get together and map out specific places.

Hope this helps!

The cost of ArcGIS Pro at the time of writing this is (non-commercial use) is $100 USD. This also gives you ArcGIS Online. But the cost goes up in the thousands range for commercial and business use

I’m a volunteer editor working with habitat conservation groups. Could I chat with you over the phone or Zoom about your work? I’ve realized that since ALL of my documents have maps, and many of those maps are GIS-generated, I should really get some initial training in QGIS, and possibly Arc Pro or its predecessor. I’d like to know more about your customer base — I’m not interested in poaching, I just want to get a feel for what small organizations want in GIS products.

If you’re interested, I’d be willing to learn QGIS with your other volunteers, and contribute to making data products for your town. It would be good for me to learn the basics, because I’m a retired technical writer volunteering my time editing habitat conservation studies (and anything else related to environmental protection, green energy, or climate change mitigation.

Even if I’m not a good match for your volunteer needs, I’d at least like to talk to you in real time, on the phone or Zoom, to get more background on how you use QGIS for your town. Thanks for replying! — J.C. (John Clifford) Armbruster, Olympia, Washington

I appreciate your candor.

I’m a technical writer and editor dedicated to producing useful environmental documentation. I volunteer my technical editing services to any group involved in environmental protection, green energy or climate change mitigation projects.

Since my last three projects consisted of editing/copyediting/proofreading and document design analysis of habitat conservation studies, I’ve decided to learn as much as I can about GIS, and possibly become “bilingual” in ArcPro and QGIS, at least at the novice level. I need to know the basics of GIS mapping for the biological sciences, because the maps and images in these scientific papers are part and parcel of the knowledge being given to readers.

But for me, the only obstacle to learning ArcPro is cost. As a volunteer editor, how can I afford ArcPro? Or should I be going back to my alma mater (the Evergreen State College) so see if they’ll give me a student license? What is the current cost of ArcPro for an individual license, anyway?

Since the author brought up web maps, community and emerging technologies. We’d be amiss to discount some of the other functionality that is included with ArcGIS Pro outside of the purely desktop software. That includes Story Maps, Web Apps, Field Maps, Dashboards, Experience builder. Much of the purpose of these new products is not so much to create more GIS professionals as enable more GIS aware end users. That really is the end game. Even if we develop the most sophisticated geo-analysis, if we cannot share or present in an effective or convincing manner, what’s the point?

ESRI has developed an entire GIS ecosystem suited for emerging / mature organizations which use GIS regularly as both creators and consumers. As most of the comments here have pointed out the value to cost for desktop solution is undeniable. The true value comes from being able to enable our end users and put the power of maps, geography and science in their grasp in a simple, non-technical, intuitive interface.

Don’t get me wrong, we can use leaflet and Python and a host of other solutions to share and distribute content. But now we’re asking our GIS professionals to also be a programmer and a web developer. If we factor in the cost of expertise and abilities and compare (ArcGIS Pro user that can simply publish a map to ArcGIS Online for immediate consumptions vs a dedicated programmer to create code) the calculus changes.

ArcGIS Pro has buried things behind a TARDIS of click-walls. I need to search the internet for the simplest of tasks and that take time away from meeting work demands quickly. ArcGIS Pro is slow and clucky. v3.1 is getting closer to being stable but my job is not to debug ESRI’s software so I have been a hesitant adopter. Simple tasks spin for some unknown reason like opening tables, popup, exporting, and geoprocessing tasks…things that took milliseconds in Map and still take milliseconds in QGIS. It is actually shocking that ESRI is still fixed on the shapefile as a default type and not geodatabases.

ArcGIS Pro does shine with the universal application of geoprocessing environments. Setting analysis for the window extent and snap rasters is pure gold for reducing file sizes to project areas and file sizes.

Here are some of the features I like:

* Feature counts: Right click on a layer in the table of contents and select “Show feature count” to show the count of features in that layer. If you have a category- or rules-based symbology, the count is shown for each, all right there in the table of contents.
* Filtering (i.e. turning off and on) the display of features with classed symbologies: Both rule- and category-based symbologies allow (with checkboxes) clicking off/on symbologies in either the table of contents or on the symbology pane.
* Selecting features by classification: You can select features from a class with a right click on the class in the table of contents; you can then zoom to those features, export them, or do whatever you need with the selection.
* Easy access to layer filtering (the attribute query in Esri-speak): Right click on the layer in the table of contents and “Filter” is one of the choices. Once a query is created, a funnel icon shows up on that layer in the table of contents; click it to open the query window. When you mouse over the icon, a popup appears with the query text.
* Layer locking: You can lock layers to prevent them from accidentally being removed from a project file. When locked, a lock icon is displayed with the layer name in the table of contents.
* Layer notes: You can add notes to any layer. Layers with notes display a notepad icon in the table of contents; click it to open the notes window. Hovering the mouse over the icon displays a popup showing the notes.
* Layer edit mode: When a layer in QGIS is in edit mode, a pencil displays to the left of the layer name.
* Layer information: When hovering over a layer in the table of contents, a popup appears with the CRS and data path of the layer.
* Raster symbology: So many options are available here. I often use Google Maps for my imagery layer for the sake of display speed. I can alter the display of the imagery (Google or any other) for contrast, brightness, saturation, and gamma. If I’m working with a DEM, I can render it with up to 255 breaks. By altering the color ramp (a very simple process), you can closely examine the elevation changes in a fairly level area.
* Complex symbology: QGIS has a feature called the “Geometry generator” (it’s worth a web search!). Using formulas accessing features’ data or geometry, symbologies can be created that would otherwise require running geoprocessing to create feature sets whose only function is to create some desired symbology. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s possible.
* Rules-based symbologies: You can symbolize any aspect of a layer’s features and turn these on and off as needed, and even group them, using “rules” (essentially queries, but with many more options). If you leave the rule empty, it will display for the entire layer. This way, one layer can have several symbologies for different purposes, so you don’t need to duplicate a layer for every symbology you need or to create a complex symbology. If you create a categorized symbology, you can convert it to a rules-based symbology by changing the symbology type from “categorized” to “rules-based.”
* Merged symbologies: A good example of this is symbolizing land-use categories in a municipality. If you simply symbolize these categories, there will be outlines around each parcel. If you don’t want to see all those borders you can use a merged symbology, where adjacent parcels of the same category will become one symbol in the output (this can be verified by opening an exported PDF in a vector-editing program; all contiguous parcels of the same category will be a single entity). If you want an outline, the outline will be around groups of contiguous parcels.
* Calculated fields: Often in a project I will use data that I don’t want to modify (such as regional data used by others) but I want a modified value that can be derived from the data. Calculated fields to the rescue! Whether it’s geography-related (e.g. calculating the area of intersection of a feature with a feature from another layer), a mathematical calculation, or text manipulations (simple concatenation or more complex manipulations using regular expressions), there’s much that can be done. I’ll often use a calculated field for creating specialized labeling.
* Calculated summaries: This builds on the previous item. I have some dummy shapefiles with one feature. I’ll use this layer and add calculated fields that summarize data in other layers. If I make a modification in one of the referenced layers, it will automatically be updated in the summaries. You can even base these calculations on the categories you might use for a rules-based symbology. It’s easy to modify formulas, and as far as documentation goes (knowing what formulas were used where), the documentation is in the formulas! Lock the layers that you use in the summary calculations!
* Easy customization of keyboard shortcuts: if you use other graphics programs very much, you may want to use similar shortcuts. Some examples of what I use all the time:
-Select a layer in the table of contents: type 0 [zero] to zoom to that layer’s extents; – Select some features on a layer: use [ctrl]+J to zoom to those features – Zoom previous: backspace – Zoom next: space
You can even (as of a recent update) set keyboard shortcuts for the layout view.
* Saved layer sets/groups: QGIS calls these “themes.” I use them all the time when working in a map, depending on what I’m currently doing. You can base map layouts on themes so you never need to remember what layers are on for what layout, so even if you have different layers displaying on the map, layouts will always display their assigned layers. If you have only some categorized- or rules-based-symbologies on for a layer, that will be saved with the theme. And of course, themes can be updated as needed.
* Complex annotations: All the basic types that apply to symbologies (rules-based, etc.) are available for annotations. Annotations can be moved while maintaining a connection with the data. A recent update brought us “Annotation layers,” which can include text and graphics that will remain positioned geographically.
* XML file format: That’s right, I can open a map project file and edit the text directly. This is a great time-saver when I need to make a lot of changes that can be more easily and quickly accomplished with a find-and-replace rather than clicking through the QGIS interface several times.
* Easily copy styling from one layer to another: It’s easy and quick to copy all the styles from one layer to another, and even faster if you assign keyboard shortcuts to the tasks.
* Transparency applied to symbology is maintained in PDF output: There’s no need to increase the DPI of the output if linear elements have transparency because QGIS maintains vectors as vectors, even if transparency is set. Also, transparency can be set on either the outline or the fill, independently.
* Layer actions: Layer actions are specialized actions that can be performed on a feature from the attribute table. I have created three that I use often: Zoom to feature, Pan to feature, and Flash feature, and I created icons for these that show in a column in the attribute table. Instead having to right click and choose “Zoom to feature,” I only need to click on the magnifying-glass icon to zoom to that feature, and if I am doing a lot of that sort of zooming when I have the attribute table open, it’s a big time-saver, and it’s just plain easier than repeatedly doing the right-click-zoom-to-feature thing.

There’s more, but this is quite enough for now.

A word about the ribbon: I have yet to become comfortable with the ribbon, despite using Word and Excel frequently in my work. It requires too many clicks to get to what I want to do. I am a fan of the palettes and properties panes familiar to users of Adobe products; QGIS uses this model.