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Enhance decision-making and build trust in your community by engaging large audiences with one centralized tool, streamlining project management, and improving input analysis.
Explore our case studies to discover tips and best practices from successful initiatives leveraging our digital community engagement platform.
Faced with the daunting task of allocating $250 million as part of the Rams settlement fund, the City of St. Louis and the Board of Aldermen embarked on an ambitious digital community engagement strategy to involve residents in the fund allocation process from the start.
Localized flooding and poor stormwater drainage can significantly disrupt communities, causing problems from road and property damage to safety issues due to hydroplaning. In a city like Lancaster, stormwater management is particularly important as they run on a combined sewer system, meaning it collects and transports both domestic sewage and rainwater from the City’s storm drains into a single system of pipes – meaning, these pipes have a lot of work to do! As part of their collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on their larger Green Infrastructure project, the City of Lancaster is seeking to improve their community’s stormwater management quality.
By definition, comprehensive plans are complex, long-range, and broad in scope. The planning and engagement processes for these plans often take over two years to complete. This can make it difficult to establish and maintain meaningful engagement with community members throughout the process. Using CitizenLab’s user-friendly and accessible online engagement platform, the City of Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development (OPCD) reached thousands of residents in their planning process over 2022, all while supporting their goal for inclusive and equitable engagement.
“We decided to launch our platform with Go Vocal because of the ease of use - not only for our residents, but also for our teams! Today we have a centralized place where we can see community responses and assign people across departments to be administrators on projects. Now we’re engaging across departments and coming together to share best practices between teams.”
“In addition to increasing the quantity of participants, we were able to improve the quality of our community conversations by answering direct questions and responding to concerns promptly, before misinformation and rumor mills could overtake the dialogue.”
“We presented the platform to our leadership team, and they absolutely lost their minds. They are so pumped for the site and the work it will enable us to do for the Comp Plan. Your team deserves a huge thank you for being so incredibly responsive and flexible and working with us to stand our platform up on such a short timeline. We really appreciate it!”
“When you drill down into the functionality you see that CitizenLab is more flexible, visually appealing, and user-friendly... I feel the way CitizenLab’s platform is set up fosters a positive participation environment [and] the fact that the back office is so easy to use has been a massive bonus because it doesn’t scare anyone away, no matter their comfort level with technology.”
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Instead of the exhausting cycle of big-splash projects followed by digital silence, smart governments are making sure residents are engaged year-round. From simple monthly questions to seasonal activities and always-open feedback forms, there are multiple ways to keep community members invested without draining your team. Here are a few strategies discussed during one of Go Vocal's client-exclusive community sessions.
Written in collaboration with the Department of Civic Things, part one of this two-part series explores the steps you need to take to create a sustainable and effective engagement strategy for your government agency. Dive into the best practices and guidelines on equitable, meaningful community engagement and build a stronger community together with your residents.
Community engagement isn’t just about checking the box – it’s about fostering meaningful dialogue and real impact. Join us as local government leaders share strategies for increasing participation, ensuring diverse voices are heard, and turning engagement into real action. Learn how to move beyond surface-level outreach to build trust and long-term relationships with your community.
