Go Vocal’s blog—get insights, advice, and all the latest information on trends to help you foster meaningful engagement.
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.
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.
Citizen initiatives are gaining popularity, citizen assemblies are proposed as a solution to defrost polarised debate, and overall, there are more participation methods to choose from than ever before.
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.
Today’s political landscape is characterised by strong polarisation, a sense of unease, and a decline of trust in our governments (and democracy as a whole).
Artificial Intelligence, Collective Intelligence… these notions might sound like they come from coming from a distant future, but they are actually becoming reality.
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 are often presented as a potential antidote in the face of growing political disaffection in many parts of the world. However, all citizen initiatives differ from each other. We identified 4 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.
By the time you finish reading this sentence, around 30,000 tweets have been posted and 200,000 searches have been made on Google.
This blog post is inspired by the article “Understanding New Power” by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, which is an extract from their book New Power.
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.
Leverage visual tools when planning your public spaces to help your residents analyze and pinpoint areas of improvement in your community.
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.
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.
In recent years, communities across the globe have voiced a burgeoning need and desire to be directly involved in local decision-making.
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.
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.
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.
