PublicInput.com co-hosted a webinar with Planning Supervisor TJ McCourt of Raleigh, NC. McCourt and his team recently received national attention from NRPA’s Parks & Recreation for their Raleigh dog parks project. Watch the highlights or use the jump links to fast-forward.

Every resident needs the opportunity to be heard when it comes to the issues that affect them, which is why a community engagement strategy is critical, no matter the size of a town or the scope of a project.

Great community engagement relies on getting meaningful feedback from residents on a given project. Meaningful feedback makes engagement efforts worthwhile, provides valuable insights to project teams, and builds public trust by improving the relationship between residents and local government.

Using an online survey tool like SurveyMonkey may seem like a no-brainer, but online survey tools like SurveyMonkey are not designed for public engagement - and can even undermine your success.Start with your intention. When considering an engagement tool, it’s important to ask the following…

While every community is different, local government agencies often run into the same initial hurdle: how to get the word out about an upcoming project. Keep reading to see best practices for initial outreach and how public engagement software helps government agencies reach underrepresented groups.

Public engagement software is helping consultants become more community-centric — and achieve greater profit, impact, and trust along the way.

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.