Go Vocal’s blog—get insights, advice, and all the latest information on trends to help you foster meaningful engagement.
Governments are strategically combining multiple tools and techniques to achieve a 10x improvement across operations, service delivery, customer experience, and mission outcomes. In this article, we'll explore what GovTech is, its benefits, how to implement it, and what the future holds for this exciting field.
Governments are strategically combining multiple tools and techniques to achieve a 10x improvement across operations, service delivery, customer experience, and mission outcomes. In this article, we'll explore what GovTech is, its benefits, how to implement it, and what the future holds for this exciting field.
Participatory democracy is a form of government that has gained significant traction over the past years, making government more responsive and decisions more equitable. This article explores the principles, benefits, and challenges of participatory democracy, comparing it to other forms of democratic governance.
For governments at all levels seeking ways to engage their constituents in decision-making and agenda setting, proposals are a powerful, generative tool that help close the gap between top-down measures and bottom-up movements.
Building a community where residents trust their government requires a strategic and intentional approach to engagement. To ensure your initiatives are successful, it's essential to establish a strong community engagement strategy based on the following six pillars.
Climate change, social equity, affordable housing, and sustainable mobility top the list of priorities for local governments. To address these effectively, there's an urgent need for better planning tools to meaningfully engage residents in the decision-making process. That’s why we’ve recently released a significant upgrade of our platform's interactive Mapping suite, turning it into a powerful toolbox for local governments and planners to harness collective wisdom and foster collaborative problem-solving.
Ensuring equal participation in decision-making processes for all community members is paramount. Digital accessibility stands at the forefront of this inclusive approach. By embracing accessibility, we help you unlock the potential for diverse voices to contribute, fostering a more representative and dynamic democratic process.
Summer, with its promise of warm weather and vacations, naturally draws people outdoors to explore and enjoy their surroundings more than any other season, making residents experience their community spaces in new and different ways compared to the colder, darker months. That's why summer's an ideal moment to tap into the collective intelligence of your community and learn about ideas for improvement if you ask us!
One of our Public Square podcast episodes takes us to the bustling metropolis of New York City, where the Public Engagement Unit (PEU), under the leadership of Adrienne Lever has developed an innovative approach to community engagement. Our conversation with her unveiled key insights and actionable strategies from their work, offering a blueprint for other cities and organizations aiming to enhance community engagement and public service effectiveness.
We launched our podcast, Public Square, to highlight the transformative stories of local governments worldwide. One episode features an engaging discussion with Aja Hazelhoff from the City of Seattle, focusing on the crucial integration of equitable engagement into comprehensive planning.
In 2023, we launched our updated Events feature and have already seen it help boost engagement: 54% of event attendees had never contributed to their city’s consultation before. And our early results tell us that events are the perfect introduction to the world of participation – they have a strong ability to attract residents who are early in their participation journeys. In fact, 46% of event attendees contribute to other projects!
During the holiday season, you might find some more time to grab a book and learn about the possibilities to innovate our democracies in the digital age and how you can help build better politics. Not sure where to start? Our curated list of favorite books, listed in no particular order, has you covered. Let’s dive in!
Traditionally, community engagement has been compartmentalized into offline and online methods, often treated as distinct and separate elements. However, the evolving needs and preferences of the public call for a paradigm shift. It’s time to blend these worlds, for instance by using digital engagement platforms as enhancers of offline community engagement. This integration promises to streamline processes and enrich the quality of participation.
A significant part of any local governments’ list of responsibilities is creating comprehensive plans. These might be strategic plans defining local priorities. Climate plans, outlining long-term strategies. Mobility plans, determining the local traffic and public transport situation. Or maybe city plans, containing decisions to reshape our public spaces in the short and longer term.
More and more local governments are engaging their communities in decision-making. Whether it’s to increase trust or create more inclusive policies, community engagement has become a central part of local government and we’ve found that digital engagement with CitizenLab leads to 12x more participation on average. To help local governments keep up, engagement teams are being formed in cities all across the country.
Over the last few years, there’s been a shift from top-down governance to more horizontally organised types of government. This new political current includes all the stakeholders of public policy projects, such as public organisations, businesses and citizens, into the decision-making process.
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From costly expenses to loss of control, several misconceptions about community engagement can hinder local governments from unlocking the full potential of participatory democracy to this day. In this blog post, we’ll explore five of the most-heard myths and why they’re not true.
Whether you’re looking to launch a project, are already running one, or have reached the report-out phase, a strong communications plan will help drive the success of your efforts. In this article, we discuss the five basic principles of a good communications plan for your community engagement efforts.
Citizen initiatives – also known as community proposals – are often seen as a potential antidote to growing political disaffection in many parts of the world. However, not all proposal programs are the same. We have identified four key success factors.
For the last year and a half, the world has grappled with a disruptive and deadly pandemic. Earlier this year, the climate crisis reared its head, wiping out entire towns and regions with floods and fires. There’s only way for us to face these trials—by engaging communities and tackling challenges as one.
We hear it often: you want to reach more of your community, and go beyond the same 10 loudest voices in the room. You want your process to be more inclusive so that everyone has the tools necessary to fully participate. However, some groups are harder to reach than others. So how do you reach beyond your usual audience?
Harnessing the full power of your community engagement platform requires effective moderation. This ensures vibrant, inclusive dialogue and boosts trust. Dive into best practices to enhance the quality and productivity of the conversations on your platform.
Every local government and organization that has ever launched a community engagement project knows the challenge: How do you reach underheard groups? In this article, we’ll cover some of the good practices to follow for inclusive community engagement so that you’ll be ready to set up your participation broadly and activate even hard-to-reach target groups.
While the full participation ladder is made up of various methods for community engagement, sometimes local government projects simply necessitate a fast and decisive turnaround when consulting residents and other stakeholders. And that goes two ways, with residents also wanting options to engage with fellow community members’ ideas and see a more direct line of influence on local decision-making.
Public spaces should be equitably distributed, open to everyone, and inclusively designed. It’s no wonder that many urban planning processes now focus on placemaking, the people-centered approach to planning and design of public spaces. More than ever before, there is recognition of the importance of neighborhoods and the significance of factors such as walkability, public transportation, access to jobs, and diverse housing options. And even beyond their immediate neighborhoods, people’s expectations of the public realm have changed.
