As government agencies and municipalities continue to adopt software solutions, typical approaches to community engagement are being augmented. While public involvement efforts in the past mostly focused on manual processes and in-person communication, technology is making these efforts more efficient, targeted, and scalable.
Cities of every size are subject to traffic and parking issues. Every town has roads, commuters, pedestrians, bikers - not to mention limits created by zoning, space, or capacity for infrastructure. Exeter, New Hampshire is a town of 15,000 residents. Over the past year parking and traffic have been garnering more attention from the public,...
Held in Milwaukee this September, the 3CMA Annual Conference gathered hundreds of government communicators eager to learn from one another about how to accomplish better community engagement. There was plenty to be inspired by, as speakers presented on their efforts both offline and online. We heard about how Kansas City, Missouri was reaching a new...
Cities across the country are wrestling with housing affordability. Durham's planning team realized there might be misconceptions among residents, especially for 'missing middle' formats like duplexes and triplexes. Using the platform, Durham engaged over 1,200 residents in a highly-visual interactive experience that educated and gathered input on potential solutions. Turns out only 18% of residents could...
Last October, the owners of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew announced that they were contemplating relocation. Austin was at the top of their list. But could the city handle the responsibilities that would come with it? Would taxpayers be willing to give up city-owned land for a new stadium? Here’s how the city’s communication team used...
With community needs assessments becoming a popular tool for identifying key needs, we took a look at the key approaches we've seen work especially well.Read about it in our recent post here: Four Key Strategies for a successful Community Needs Assessment
This past week, I found myself unable to put down a book by New York City's former transportation director, Janette Sadik-Khan. In Street Fight, she outlines her experiences of making big transportation changes in a city where change is notoriously hard.One story in particular caught my attention. When working on the citywide roll-out of Citi...
When working with our partner agencies, we often help them iterate their engagement processes from where they're at to help them develop flexible public involvement strategies that can work for all situations and require minimal training or adjustment of existing processes.