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Go Vocal’s blog—get insights, advice, and all the latest information on trends to help you foster meaningful engagement.
You've discovered Social Pinpoint, perhaps through a webinar or a colleague's recommendation. Maybe you think their platform would be a good fit for your online community engagement projects. But there could be something that better aligns with your specific needs.
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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.
Over the last few years, there’s been a shift from top-down governance to more horizontally organized types of governance. This new political current includes all the stakeholders of public policy projects, such as public organizations, businesses and community members, into the decision-making process.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Open government is one of the most closely watched trends in GovTech. While the idea that governments should be more transparent and collaborative isn’t new, it has been gaining momentum in recent years. The growth of public-private partnerships and the development of increasingly complex algorithms behind democratic tools have also reinforced the calls for accountability and openness.
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.
If community members are taking the time to visit your community engagement platform and share their ideas, you should take the time to follow up on their input. By communicating actively, you can help build trust with your community.
Our cities. They are the nexuses of our world. As buzzing and vibrant melting pots of culture, history, art, commerce, and progress, they represent some of humanity’s finest and brightest triumphs. Wherever people from all walks of life come together, the air is thick with raw potential.
Wildfires. Drought. Hurricanes. Floods. These days it seems like everywhere you look, some part of the world is experiencing a natural disaster. While some climate changes are natural, today’s rising temperatures and abnormal weather patterns are a direct result of human activities. While organizations, countries, and individuals are all taking steps to mitigate the burgeoning crisis, according to the United Nations we are not on track to meet the target set by the Paris Agreement to prevent the globe’s temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Where do we go from here? Enter climate action plans.
Do you have a small team dedicated to community engagement efforts? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The City of Allen has demonstrated how a small team can achieve excellent results by fostering widespread support throughout the organization and crafting a robust engagement strategy, strongly facilitated by its online community engagement platform.
So, you’ve engaged your community. You’ve asked residents and stakeholders to share ideas, cast votes, or take part in a survey. You might’ve even asked them to allocate budgets or invited them to an online workshop. And now, your community engagement results are in.
Whether you’ve been updating bicycle infrastructure or you’re struggling to connect transit options, it’s key to make your city’s mobility plan as inclusive as possible. So what exactly should you consider, and how should you go about it?
Running inclusive and participatory community engagement projects requires meeting people where they are. In part, that means having a plan for multilingual engagement to ensure that everyone in your community has the ability to participate. By removing language barriers, your community engagement efforts will be more inclusive, participatory, and representative.
Whether you’re working in the public or private sector, you’ll inevitably find yourself needing buy-in from community members and other stakeholders. Comprehensive plans, economic development plans, strategic plans, climate action plans, mobility plans – whatever your mandate, most planning processes share the same core components and necessitate public engagement.
Anonymous participation can be the key to unlocking engagement on topics that your community is divided on. We’ve helped clients host their fair share of such projects on Go Vocal platforms, and we heard the desire for an anonymous participation option loud and clear. Read more to learn how this latest feature can help increase engagement rates.
An effective community engagement team, similar to a well-tuned orchestra, relies on a mix of diverse roles each playing their unique part in harmony. As for most teams, the key to success lies in bringing together people with different personalities, skills, and abilities. We sat down with Hugo De Brouwer, CitizenLab’s Head of Government Success, to discuss which roles and skills an organization needs to take participation to the next level.
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