Ten Pointers for More Inclusive Public Engagement

Our friends at the Orton Family Foundation recently shared a list of 10 great tips for inclusive engagement that we wanted to share with our members. Orton’s tips come from lessons learned through their engagement work, especially with their Community Heart & Soul program – which is detailed in the full post. But the list was so good, we wanted to make sure our network saw it. Check it out below or read Orton’s full post here.


Orton LogoTop 10 Tips for Inclusive Engagement

1. There’s no such thing as the “general public”

Learn who your community is (its demographics, stakeholders, and networks) and how residents get their information. This knowledge is vital to designing effective community engagement and communication activities about your effort. Identify the key connectors who can help you reach these groups. At the same time, remember that no one person speaks for an entire group. See our Community Network Analysis Tool.

2. Keep your “promise” to community members

Be clear about how resident input will be used in your project (i.e. how much influence they will actually have). Be transparent about how residents’ input is used and what actions will result.

3. Go to the people

Change up how you gather community input. Go where people hang out, whether it’s physical gathering spaces, like a coffee shop or a brew pub, the senior center or a little league game, even online spaces.

Examples – In Damariscotta, Maine local organizers went to the town’s hugely popular annual Pumpkin Fest & Regatta, set up a booth, and used candy corn voting in jars to help with early priority setting. In the North Fork Valley, Colorado the Heart & Soul team held an event at the local brew pub and gathered people’s input on coasters—and from those coasters folks were lifting pints of Love It or Leave it Ale, brewed specially for the event!

4. Spread the word

Create a communications plan that includes project branding, messaging, and tactics for persuasively talking about your project. Use communication channels and messengers that have connections with who you are trying to reach.

Example – Victor, Idaho had a community wide Heart & Soul logo contest to help shape the brand and give it local flavor. The result: “Victor: What’s It to You?”

5. Ask for people’s personal stories

To draw in new voices, the Foundation begins Heart & Soul projects by gathering people’s stories about their town. Stories allow folks to express their experiences and opinions in their own words, without needing to understand planning or technical jargon. You’ll hear from people you wouldn’t have otherwise, and build new bridges and relationships through the process.

Example – In Biddeford, Maine story gatherers went to the local boxing ring and cigar shop, fishing areas and local diners to collect people’s stories of Biddeford. And they shared them in a public event with hundreds of folks as part of rebuilding pride in their town.

6. Understand the power dynamics

Be sensitive to parts of your population who may be uncomfortable participating (e.g. newcomers who come from a culture where participation was unsafe, people whose views have been marginalized in past community efforts). Find a safe way to talk with those groups about their concerns regarding participation and let them tell you how best to engage them.

Example – In Cortez, Colorado Heart & Soul project leaders communicated directly with the Ute Mountain Ute leadership to understand how to successfully bring information to the reservation and to listen to their concerns and advice. Through this listening and trust building, the tribe members became engaged in designing public art for the City’s southern gateway.

7. Engage in their interests

For some groups you may have to participate in something that matters to them first to make a connection.

Example – In Starksboro, Vermont our project began with cleanup activities because the first thing on peoples’ minds was to clean up the neighborhood. They weren’t talking about the future. After working together – accomplishing something – we were ready to engage in a broader conversation.

8. Think about the details

When hosting a community event, think through how you can make it more inclusive. Carefully consider the most convenient timing and location depending on whom you’re looking to engage. Provide childcare so young families can attend. Make sure to offer food. And consider transportation needs and whether a translator or facilitator could make a difference.

9. Use technology…if it’s a fit

There are many great new ways to engage people, such as online forums, cell phone voting, and social media. These tools can help make your efforts more inclusive if they are a fit with the crowd you are trying to reach. While not everyone has computer access, many more people have smart phones. But remember, good, old word of mouth and personal connections are still the best ways to get people to participate.

10. Make it fun!

When bringing people together for any meaningful discussion you are also creating the potential for a community building moment. Include lots of activities that make yours a real community event (e.g. local music and food, potlucks, poetry slams, and art exhibits).

Example – Golden, Colorado held a series of neighborhood block parties where you could have your pet checked out by a vet; get a bike tune up and a BBQ lunch while also getting project information, sharing stories and participating in a visual preference survey.

And don’t forget to celebrate your achievements with the community! It’s invaluable to mark your progress and honor your volunteers publicly.

You can find the original version of this Orton Family Foundation blog post by visiting www.orton.org/blog/top-ten-tips-inclusive-engagem.

CM & Orton Launch Heart & Soul Talks and Trainings

We are excited to announce that our friends at CommunityMatters – a partnership in which NCDD is a core member – are introducing a new series of online events on the Orton Family Foundation‘s Heart & Soul Planning process, which is also the basis of Orton’s new Heart & Soul Field Guide.

CM_logo-200pxThe series begins this Thursday, February 12th at 4pm Eastern with a “Heart & Soul Talk” conference call. The talk, titled “Use Community Network Analysis to Improve Participation and Results,” promises to be a great opportunity to learn about a useful tool that can strengthen the work that many of our NCDD members do.

The call will feature the insights of NCDD member Alece Montez-Greigo along with Alexis Halbert and Gabrielle Ratté Smith of the Orton Family Foundation. Here’s how the folks at CM describe the event:

Achieving community-wide participation is an admirable but often lofty goal. Identifying the multiple layers of community can be the difference between success or failure of a project. Orton’s Community Network Analysis (CNA) brings fresh new voices and solutions to the table and is a powerful way to understand who lives, works, and plays in your town and how best to reach them.

Alece Montez-Greigo, Orton’s director of programs, explains the tool. Community Heart & Soul project coordinators Alexis Halbert of Paonia, Colorado, and Gabrielle Ratté Smith, senior associate for strategic partnerships at Orton and of Essex, Vermont, join her to share their on-the-ground experience with CNA.

We encourage you to learn more about the Heart & Soul Field Guide from one of our recent entries in the NCDD Resource Center and to register for this first Heart & Soul Talk today. We hope hear you on the call next week!

“Resilient Communities” Conference Call from CM, Jan. 22

We are pleased to invite NCDD members once again to join CommunityMatters – a joint partnership that NCDD is proud to be a member of – for the next installation in their capacity-building call series. This month’s call on “Resilient Communities”, CM_logo-200pxand it will be taking place on Thursday, January 22nd, from 2-3pm Eastern Time.

The folks at CM describe the upcoming call like this:

Our communities are constantly changing. Most changes are gradual and predictable – a new store opens on Main Street, newcomers come to town and priorities shift. But, sometimes change is abrupt, unexpected – a major natural disaster or an epidemic.

How can your city or town best prepare for unanticipated change? What will help your community respond to challenges not only to bounce back, but to become stronger than ever?

Michael Crowley, senior program officer, Institute for Sustainable Communities, and Christine Morris, chief resilience officer with the City of Norfolk, Virginia, join CommunityMatters for an hour-long conference call on January 22. They’ll share ideas about and lessons learned from building resilient communities.

We highly encourage you to save the date and register for the call today by clicking here.

Before you join the call, we also suggest that you check out the blog piece on boosting community resilience that Caitlyn Davison recently posted on the CM blog to accompany the call. You can read her piece below, or find the original here.

We hope to hear you on the call next week!


7 Ways to Boost Your Community’s Resilience

Do you know what’s around the corner for your community?

Community resilience is about making our cities and towns less vulnerable to major and unexpected change, and establishing positive ways to face change together.

Resilient communities build on local strengths to anticipate change, reduce the impact of major events, and come back from a blow stronger than ever.

What steps can your community take toward resilience? Here are seven ideas from cities and towns working to boost local resilience.

1. Stop, collaborate, and listen. Focus on how people in your area collaborate. In trying times, people in resilient communities mobilize quickly, working together to solve problems and help each other. Promote neighbor-to-neighbor cooperation through collaborative efforts like a community garden, seed library, tool sharing, or solar co-op.

2. Put a dot on it. The Carse of Gowrie area of Scotland is engaging residents in identifying local strengths through community resilience mapping. Residents used online software to map assets in light of potential climate change risks and opportunities. The maps help locals visualize their community and provide valuable data for decision-making.

3. Set an agenda for resilience. To kick-start community conversations about resilience in Norfolk, Virginia – one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities – the city hosted an Agenda-Setting Resilience Workshop. The workshop brought together community leaders and residents to discuss the interconnected impacts of local stresses and shocks, including rising sea level and recurrent tidal flooding. Feedback from the workshop will inform the city’s resilience plan.

4. Create a local resilience task force. In New York’s Hudson Valley, non-profit Scenic Hudson formed a task force to plan for sea level rise and flood-resistant waterfronts. The task force’s final report outlines general and site-specific recommendations that promote resilient and thriving waterfront communities.

5. Practice your plan. You might have the slickest emergency plan ever written, but it isn’t going to do your town much good if no one else knows about it. Still recovering from Superstorm Sandy, the community of Red Hook, New York isn’t messing around. After developing an emergency response plan based on community members’ experience during Sandy, the Red Hook Coalition organized Ready Red Hook Day, a fun practice event to walk through the plan and visit local response stations.

6. Talk about communication during crisis. When a disaster strikes, will people in your community know about it? How will they let others know they are okay, or that they need assistance? In San Francisco, grassroots resilience planning helped develop a simple system for the elderly to communicate – a green door hanger indicates everyone got out safely; red means help is needed.

7. Plan big. Communities in Vermont know that planning for resilience at the local level might not be enough – they experienced crisis first-hand after Hurricane Irene devastated large parts of the state in 2011. Resilient Vermont, led by the Institute for Sustainable Communities, is working to develop an integrated, long-term strategy for resilience that weaves together state, regional, and local initiatives.

On January 22, Michael Crowley, senior program officer, Institute for Sustainable Communities, and Christine Morris, chief resilience officer with the city of Norfolk, Virginia, join CommunityMatters® for an hour-long talk on community resilience. You’ll find tools and lessons learned for boosting resilience in your area. Register now.

You can find the original version of this CM blog piece at www.communitymatters.org/blog/7-ways-boost-your-community%E2%80%99s-resilience. You can find more information on the “Resilient Communities” conference call at www.communitymatters.org/event/resilient-communities.

Orton’s Community Field Guide Makes Holiday Reading List

If you are looking for something to read during your holiday down time or gift ideas, we encourage you to check out the great community and economic planning reading list that our partners with CommunityMatters shared on their blog. We especially encourage you to learn more about the Orton Family Foundation’s wonderful Community Heart & Soul Field Guide, a resource on the list that is designed to help those of us doing community & civic engagement work. You can read the list below of find the original post here.


CM_logo-200pxThe Center for Rural Entrepreneurship shared its list of top reads of 2014. Included on the list is the Community Heart & Soul™ Field Guide recommended by Erik Pages, a CRE fellow and president and founder of EntreWorks Consulting, an economic development and policy development firm who said: “This is an excellent guide to strategic planning and community building for small towns.”

Thank you Erik! Lots of great reads to add to our holiday wish lists!

Here are the center’s Top 12 Recommended Reads of 2014:

Recommended by Erik Pages, EntreWorks Consulting and Center Fellow: The Tyranny of Experts by William Easterly. While the book is mainly about international development issues, it’s a useful caution that economic development is about individual choice and empowerment – not the latest scheme from so-called “experts.”

Recommended by Don Macke: Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson. This book provides both a framework for exploring the innovation process and wonderful stories of innovation. Check out Johnson’s program on Public Broadcasting.

Recommended to Deb Markley by Angela Lust, Amarillo Area Foundation: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. This book is a true story of innovation under the most challenging circumstances. Inspiring!

Recommended by Erik Pages, EntreWorks Consulting and Center Fellow: Community Heart & Soul Field Guide by the Orton Family Foundation. This is an excellent guide to strategic planning and community building for small towns.

Recommended by all Center staff: The Good Jobs Strategy – How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profit by Zeynep Ton. This book provides great case evidence that the race to the bottom need not be the rule as businesses struggle to be competitive.

Recommended by Don Macke: Owning Our Future – The Emerging Ownership Revolution and Journeys to a Generative Economy by Marjorie Kelly. For those of us engaged in entrepreneurship as a means to better economies, this is a must read.

Recommended by Erik Pages, EntreWorks Consulting and Center Fellow: Fueling Up – The Economic Implications of America’s Oil and Gas Boom by the Peterson Institute, an economic impact study of shale energy. Not the most scintillating read, but great data that encourages us to be cautious and realistic about the “shale energy revolution.”

Recommended by Travis Starkey, a millennial and educator in eastern North Carolina: “Creative Class Counties and the Recovery.” This Daily Yonder article shows the value of the “creative class” to the economic recovery in some parts of rural America.

Recommended by Don Macke: The End of the Suburbs by Leigh Gallagher. This book provides interesting insight on the changing spatial demographics in the United States.

Recommended by Deb Markley: Sources of Economic Hope: Women’s Entrepreneurship. This Kauffman Foundation research report suggests why accelerating women’s entrepreneurship might be the best thing we can do for the U.S. economy.

Recommended by Don Macke: The Coming Jobs War by Jim Clifton. This book provides insight from the Chairman of Gallup and their unique international view of global competition.

Recommended by Don Macke: What Then Must We Do? – Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution by Gar Alperovitz. Rooted in the value that economies exist to meet the needs and dreams of residents, this book provides insights worth considering as we engage in economic development.

You can find the original version of this CM blog post at www.communitymatters.org/blog/12-great-reads-add-your-list.

6 Guiding Questions for Online Engagement from CM

On one of their recent capacity building calls, our friends at CommunityMatters – a partnership in which NCDD is a member – had a great discussion about online engagement. They distilled a list of key questions to help people think about and plan for online engagement that are incredibly useful. We encourage you to read more about them below or find the original CM blog post by clicking here.


CM_logo-200pxDigital engagement is the latest buzz when it comes to public participation. We hear about the great work of Code for America. We read articles claiming digital engagement is the “new normal.” Our brains spin trying to keep up with new tools and terms—Gov 2.0, civic technology, hackathons, digital citizenship. The list goes on.

Pete Peterson, executive director, Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership and Alissa Black, investment partner, Omidyar Network work with local governments to improve public engagement efforts. They know that despite the buzz, many cities and towns are hesitant to try more than a website or social media.

Pete and Alissa joined CommunityMatters to share ideas on getting started and going deeper with online public engagement. If your town is thinking about diving into the digital realm, consider these six questions.

Why engage the public? Nail down your goals for public participation before selecting a tool. Want to inform the public about a recent policy decision? A well-designed website will do the trick. Looking to collect ideas for a community plan? Consider an idea aggregation tool like Mindmixer or Neighborland. Public Pathways: A Guide to Online Engagement Tools for Local Governments presents a framework for categorizing and selecting online tools based on four engagement goals: inform, consult, collaborate and empower.

What kind of traffic visits the government website? Your municipal website is the natural place to host an online conversation. But, how many people regularly visit the site? What audience does it attract? Santa Monica, California (pop. 91,812) wanted input on its budget and general plan and took a hard look at web traffic. But the municipal site wasn’t garnering much visitation. The city partnered to host online engagement platforms on the local newspaper’s website to maximize participation and reach new audiences.

What is the outreach plan? It’s a no-brainer that you need to spread the word about face-to-face meetings. Online public engagement is no different. The latest and greatest technology isn’t enough to attract users—you still need to actively recruit participants. Trying to connect with a particular audience? Reach out to hyperlocal blogs or ethnic newspapers. Looking for intergenerational conversations? Steven Clift of e-Democracy.org recommends a mix of email and web-based technology.

How are we engaging people offline? Online public engagement is about complementing—not replacing—offline engagement. With Engage Oakland in Oakland, California (pop. 400,740), organizers encouraged public meeting attendees to share feedback online. Creating space for parallel online and offline conversations reinforced the whole process—online discussions motivated people to attend face-to-face meetings and kept those already involved at the table. The online space also allowed residents to stay in the loop without attending a meeting.

Are these the conversations we’re looking for? Take a look at examples from other cities and towns (our call notes are a great place to start!). Research the types of questions asked and issues addressed. You’re off to a good start if examples reflect what your town is looking to accomplish.

Y’all ready for this? Dust off that Jock Jams cassette and gather your posse. Online engagement is far from a contact sport, but you still need a strong team. What does readiness look like when it comes to digital public engagement? Here are a few essentials: dedicated staff to ensure government is responsive to online conversations; a marketing and outreach strategy to attract participants;committed resources for the project (and ideally, for sustaining online engagement long-term). Most of all, a willingness to dive in and try something new!

Read through the call notes and listen to the recording for more stories and insight on digital engagement from Pete, Alissa and our call participants.

You can find the original version of this post by Caitlyn Horose on the CommunityMatters blog at www.communitymatters.org/blog/key-questions-ask-successful-online-public-engagement.

CM Call on Rural Brain Drain, Oct. 9th

CM_logo-200pxWe are pleased to invite NCDD members to join our partners at CommunityMatters for the next of their monthly capacity-building calls series. This month’s call is titled “Rewriting the Rural Narrative”, and it will be taking place next Thursday, October 9th from 4-5pm Eastern Time. 

This month’s call will feature the insights of Ben Winchester, research fellow, University of Minnesota Extension. CM describes the upcoming call like this:

Brain drain – the loss of 18-29 year olds – dominates the conversation about rural population change. Yet at the same time, a lesser known migration is occurring. A majority of rural counties are, in fact, experiencing “brain gains” as newcomers age 30-49 move in.

Most communities aren’t tuned in to positive migration and miss out on the opportunities that come with newcomers. Ben Winchester, Research Fellow for the University of Minnesota Extension, Center for Community Vitality, has studied the trend and has great ideas for making the most of positive migration patterns.

Join our next CommunityMatters® and Citizen’s Institute on Rural Design™ webinar to hear Ben’s research on rural migration trends and the impacts they have on social and economic opportunity. Learn how communities are responding to these trends and what can be done in your town.

Make sure to register for the call today!

As always, we encourage you to check out the CommunityMatters blog to read Caitlyn Horose’s reflections on brain drain as a way to prime your mental pump before the call. You can read the blog post below or find the original by clicking here.

Brain Drain or Brain Gain? A New Narrative for Rural America

It seems the rural story has already been told. Small towns keep getting smaller. Schools and businesses are closing their doors. Young people are packing their bags for the city.

The loss of youth following graduation, the “brain drain,” dominates how we talk about rural population change. Hollowing Out the Middle describes the emptying of small towns. Fear feeds a narrative about rural areas “dying” or becoming “ghost towns.”

It is true that most counties – rural and urban alike – lose young people following high school graduation. Yet at the same time, a less recognized migration is occurring, and has been since the 1970s. Many rural counties are experiencing “brain gains” as newcomers age 30-49 move in. This migration is keeping small towns alive and contributing to a new narrative about rural places.

What is influencing brain gain? Research on newcomers points to quality of life as a driving force. Young professionals are looking for simpler schedules, better schools, affordable housing and recreational opportunities for themselves and their families. And, they are escaping the crime, congestion and fast pace of city life.

Surprisingly, jobs aren’t a chief motive. The quality of life factors appear to trump economic factors. However, telecommuting opportunities and the prevalence of rural broadband allows people to move into rural communities and stay employed through distant employers, even when local jobs aren’t plentiful. These trends have helped to diversify the local economic base across rural America.

Newcomers may be getting a better quality of life in small towns, but what do they bring in return? Rural communities can benefit from the unique skills and ideas of new residents. Newbies contribute to civic life - they volunteer, hold leadership positions and donate to charitable organizations. They spend money and start new businesses, aiding local economic development.

Most communities do little to recognize migration patterns or capitalize on them. What can your community do to build on this positive trend?

Join Ben Winchester, research fellow for the University of Minnesota Extension, Center for Community Vitality, for an hour-long CommunityMatters® and Citizen’s Institute on Rural Design™ webinar on rural migration trends and the impacts they have on social and economic opportunity. Learn how communities are responding to these trends and what can be done in your town. Register now.

50 “Next Generation” Digital Engagement Tools

The theme for this year’s NCDD conference, “Democracy for the Next Generation“, is meant to invite us to build on all the innovative tools and practices that have been invigorating our field in recent years. Many of those innovations are digital, and that is why a major goal for NCDD 2014 is to help our field better understand how to utilize technology for engagement and to provide insights and know-how for harnessing the emerging technologies that support dialogue and deliberation. NCDD 2014 will feature tons of “next generation” engagement tech, so don’t miss it - register today!

In keeping with our theme, we are excited to share the great list of 50 “next generation” online engagement tools (no implied endorsement) that our partners at CommunityMatters compiled with help from our friends at New America, EngagingCities, the DDC, and NCDD’s own director. Check out the CM post and the comprehensive list below or find the original version here.


CM_logo-200pxOnline public participation is an effective complement to face-to-face events such as community workshops and design charrettes. Selecting the right platform to get the most out of digital outreach can be overwhelming.

The first step is to learn what tools are out there! Here are 50 tools for online engagement in no particular order (and with no implied endorsement). These digital platforms can help local government consult, collaborate with, and empower citizens in community decision-making.

Once you’ve perused the list, check out the notes and recording of our September 5 conference call with Alissa Black and Pete Peterson, who shared advice for selecting digital tools that align with engagement goals.

  1. coUrbanize: List project information for development proposals and gather online feedback.
  2. Cityzen: Gathers feedback by integrating polling and social media sites.
  3. Community Remarks: Map-based tool for facilitating dialogue and collecting feedback.
  4. Crowdbrite: Organizes comments for online brainstorming sessions and workshops.
  5. EngagementHQ: Provides information and gathers feedback for decision-making.
  6. MetroQuest: Incorporates scenario planning and visualizations for informing the public and collecting feedback.
  7. SeeClickFix: For reporting and responding to neighborhood issues.
  8. Neighborland: Forum that encourages community discussion and action at the neighborhood level.
  9. PublicStuff: Communication system for reporting and resolving community concerns.
  10. MindMixer: Ideation platform for community projects.
  11. NextDoor: Private social network and forum for neighborhoods.
  12. Adopt-a-Hydrant: Allows citizens to help maintain public infrastructure.
  13. CivicInsight: Platform for sharing progress on development of blighted properties.
  14. i-Neighbors: Free community website and discussion forum.
  15. Recovers: Engages the public in disaster preparedness and recovery.
  16. EngagingPlans: Information sharing and feedback forum for productive participation.
  17. Street Bump: Crowdsourcing application to improve public streets.
  18. neighbor.ly: Crowdfunding platform to promote local investment in improvement projects.
  19. TellUs Toolkit: Map-based tools for engagement and decision-making.
  20. Budget Simulator: Tool for educating about budget priorities and collecting feedback.
  21. CrowdHall: Interactive town halls meetings.
  22. Citizinvestor: Crowdfunding and civic engagement platform for local government projects.
  23. Open Town Hall: Online public comment forum for government.
  24. Shareabouts: Flexible tool for gathering public input on a map.
  25. Poll Everywhere: Collects audience responses in real time, live, or via the web.
  26. Tidepools: Collaborative mobile mapping platform for gathering and sharing hyperlocal information.
  27. Community PlanIt: Online game that makes planning playful, while collecting insight on community decisions.
  28. Open311: System for connecting citizens to government for reporting non-emergency issues.
  29. DialogueApp: Promotes dialogue to solve policy challenges with citizen input.
  30. Loomio: Online tool for collaborative decision-making.
  31. PlaceSpeak: Location-based community consultation platform.
  32. Citizen Budget: Involves residents in budgeting.
  33. e-Deliberation: Collaborative platform for large group decision-making.
  34. CrowdGauge: Open-source framework for building educational online games related to public priority setting.
  35. Citizen Space: Manage, publicize, and archive all public feedback activity.
  36. Zilino: Host deliberative online forums and facilitated participatory meetings.
  37. WeJit: Collaborative online decision-making, brainstorming, debating, prioritizing, and more.
  38. Ethelo Decisions: Framework for engagement, conflict resolution, and collective determination.
  39. Community Almanac: Contribute and collect stories about your community.
  40. GitHub: Connecting government employees with the public to collaborate on code, data, and policy.
  41. VividMaps: Engages citizens to map and promote local community assets.
  42. OSCity: Search, visualize, and combine data to gain insight on spatial planning. (EU only.)
  43. Civic Commons: Promoting conversations and connections that have the power to become informed, productive, collective civic action.
  44. Crowdmap: Collaborative mapping.
  45. Codigital: Get input on important issues.
  46. All Our Ideas: Collect and prioritize ideas through a democratic, transparent, and efficient process.
  47. Neighborhow: Create useful how-to guides for the community.
  48. OurCommonPlace: A community web-platform for connecting neighbors.
  49. Front Porch Forum: A free community forum, helping neighbors connect.
  50. PrioritySpend: Prioritization tool based on valuing ideas and possible actions.

Many thanks to the numerous sources whose work supported the creation of this list, including: @alissa007, @dellarucker, @challer, @mattleighninger and @heierbacher.

Did we miss something? Tell us about your favorite digital tools for public engagement in the comments section below!

You can find the original version of this CommunityMatters post at www.communitymatters.org/blog/let%E2%80%99s-get-digital-50-tools-online-public-engagement.

CM Call on Digital Public Participation, Sept. 5

CM_logo-200pxWe are pleased to invite NCDD members to join our partners at CommunityMatters for the next of their monthly capacity-building calls series. This month’s call is titled “Deepening Public Participation - Digitally”, and it will be taking place next Friday, September 5th from 2-3pm Eastern Time. 

We are excited to note that this month’s call features insights from Pete Peterson of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership - NCDD organization member – as well as Alissa Black of the Omidyar Network. The folks at CM describe the upcoming call this way:

Your town is finally in the digital age with a website, online calendar, and Facebook page.  Now you can sit back and relax, right? Not exactly.

An array of online tools is available that can take your digital presence to the next level, promoting collaboration between government and citizens, engaging new audiences, and effectively complementing “analog” face-to-face engagement. It’s time for your town to get online and see what’s out there!

Join the next CommunityMatters® conference call and dig deeper into digital engagement with experts Alissa Black and Pete Peterson. You’ll learn about online public engagement and which digital tools are right for your town.

Make sure to register for the call today!

As always, we encourage you to check out the CommunityMatters blog to read Caitlyn Horose’s reflections on digital public participation as a way to prime your mental pump before the call. You can read the blog post below or find the original by clicking here.

Deepening Public Participation – Digitally

Commutes are too long. Schedules are too packed. Work is too demanding. With today’s busy schedules attending public meetings just isn’t a priority for many people. So how can local government get residents involved in tackling community problems?

The internet is one place that governments are turning for solutions. Digital tools for public engagement can effectively complement in-person meetings, and convenience is only one reason to invest in online participation. Here are several helpful resources to assist in ramping up engagement digitally.

Broadening Public Participation Using Online Engagement Tools outlines five benefits of online engagement: reaching more diverse residents, generating more informed participation, producing concrete data for reporting, and evaluation and setting the stage for sustained participation.

Despite the many benefits of online engagement, there are challenges. Using Online Tools to Engage the Public discusses the challenge of attracting participants and the need for targeted recruitment strategies. Also addressed is the uncertain legal landscape for digital engagement, as some public participation ordinances and policies predate current technology. The PlaceSpeak blog outlines additional issues in digital engagement—technical issues, “lurkers” and the lack of physical cues—with recommended strategies for overcoming them.

Knowing how to select appropriate online engagement tools is an added challenge. There are many considerations—project budget, desired outcomes and a community’s willingness to engage online.

Alissa Black presents a framework for categorizing and selecting digital engagement platforms in Public Pathways: A Guide to Online Engagement Tools for Local Governments. Modifying the IAP2 engagement spectrum, the guide divides the objectives of engagement into four categories: inform, consult, cooperate, empower. The progression of these categories represents a deepening in the level of public participation.

Golden Governance: Building Effective Public Engagement in California advocates for government to deepen engagement. With “deep participation,” citizens are empowered to work with government to make decisions and solve problems. While citizen empowerment shouldn’t be the goal of every public process, it needs to be a tool at the ready. When community members work together on solutions to local problems, there is greater buy-in, more can be done with less, and project stewardship is more likely.

Join Alissa Black and Pete Peterson on our next CommunityMatters conference call Friday, September 5 from 2-3 p.m. Eastern. Learn more about online public engagement and get advice on digging deeper with digital tools. There is no better way to spend your Friday afternoon, so register now!

You can find the original version of this post at www.communitymatters.org/blog/deepening-public-participation%E2%80%93digitally.

CM Call on Rural Design, August 20th

CM_logo-200pxWe are pleased to invite NCDD members once again to join our partners at CommunityMatters for the next installation in their capacity-building call series, which is jointly hosted by the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design. This month’s call is titled “How Design Sparks Rural Development”, and it will be taking place next Wednesday, August 20th from 4-5pm Eastern Time.

The folks at CM describe the upcoming call this way:

Urban, not rural, places are usually thought of as hubs of creativity and innovation, but this month’s CommunityMatters® and Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ webinar turns that notion on its head.

Emily Pilloton of Project H and Mark Rembert and Taylor Stuckert of Energize Clinton County, Ohio use the principles of good design to improve rural places, often in unexpected ways. Join us for an hour-long webinar highlighting community design that kick starts rural development. You’ll learn smart ways to introduce decision makers to design principles and find appropriate roles for “experts” and outsiders in resident-led design projects.

Register today by clicking here, and we hope to hear you on the call!

Before the call, we encourage you to check out the accompanying piece on the CM blog by Caitlyn Horose, which is cross posted below. You can find the original piece here.

Good Design Sparks Rural Community Development

Instead of focusing on developing products and services, now more than ever, architects, industrial designers, graphic artists, landscape architects, and other creative professionals are turning their attention to community development—working to solve bigger and messier problems. Just look at Human Centered Design from IDEO.org, a method for using good design to help people living in extreme poverty around the world. Association for Community Design, has supported community-based design and planning for more than three decades. Public Interest Design chronicles the growth of the community design movement in a cool infographic.

While this trend toward good design is exciting, it’s harder to find in rural community development. Many small towns aren’t bursting at the seams with graphic designers or architects.

Creative professionals are trained with an eye toward innovative and context-sensitive solutions to complex challenges. Without designers at our disposal we may fail to see all the great options for growing a village center, establishing welcoming public spaces or revitalizing downtown.

How might we encourage a greater emphasis on design in rural community development? Here are a few ideas from the forefront of rural design:

1. Introduce Elected Officials to the Principles of Good Design

Design Cents teaches public officials and community partners how to promote and implement good design to improve the quality of life in their communities. The workshop is offered by the Carl Small Town Center at Mississippi State University in Oktibbeha County (pop. 47,671).

2. Attract Creative People

Frontier Fellowship is a four-week program for creative professionals run by Epicenter in Green River, Utah (pop. 953). Fellows split their time between working on personal projects and contributing to a community improvement project.

3. Offer Pro Bono Design Services

By providing design services in the community decision-making process, Energize Clinton County in Wilmington, Ohio (pop. 12,448) aids conversations about local development proposals. Past projects include plans for a micro-brewery to catalyze business growth, design support for redeveloping historic buildings, and informational visualizations in community plan documents.

4. Design AND Build

Auburn University’s Rural Studio in Newbern, Alabama (pop. 181) emphasizes hands-on education. That’s why they didn’t stop at the blueprints when they designed a well-built, affordable housing alternative to the mobile home. The Rural Studio program designed and built 12 versions of the 20K House and is now exploring reproducing and designing on a large scale.

5. Community Education Through Design

Combining storytelling and story gathering with graphic narratives, the Beehive Collective in Machias, Maine (pop. 2,353) creates illustrations that are used for education—and conversation—starters around complex community issues.

While not a rural example (this one comes from New York City), we can’t resist mentioning the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Envisioning Development toolkits. Using objects and plain language, participants learn about planning issues like affordable housing and zoning.

6. Balance Local Knowledge and Professional Expertise

The Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ (CIRD) offers annual competitive funding to as many as four small towns or rural communities to host community design workshops. The workshops bring together local leaders and national experts to develop actionable solutions to pressing design challenges.

CIRD has convened more than 70 workshops in all regions of the country. Follow the CIRD blog to keep up on the 2014 workshop communities.

7. Engage Youth in Community Design

When Project H founders Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller wanted to bring design to a rural town, they started in an unlikely place: the poorest county in North Carolina. Bertie County had no licensed architect and more than one unfortunate statistic—24 percent of residents dropped out of high school and 65 percent of youth were unemployed.

Using education as a vehicle, the Project H team incorporated good design in improvements to the school computer lab and playground. The team’s next step was to rethink shop class, teaching design with construction and fabrication skills focused on building a farmers’ market. Project H then facilitated a summer youth employment program, paying students to build the 2,000-square-foot building, making the market a reality.

Watch the video below to hear Emily talk about the project, then head to the Project H website for a toolbox to bring design thinking into any classroom.

On Wednesday, August 20, Emily Pilloton of Project H and Mark Rembert and Taylor Stuckert of Energize Clinton County join CommunityMatters® and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ for an hour-long webinar on design in rural community development. They’ll highlight additional examples of how community design has catalyzed rural economies, with thoughts about introducing decision makers to design principles and the role of experts and outsiders in community-led design projects. Space is limited, so register early!

CM Conference Call on Grassroots Grants, July 31

CM_logo-200pxIt’s time again for another capacity-building conference call from our organizational partners at CommunityMatters, which is coming up this Thursday, July 31st from 4-5pm EST.

The topic of this latest call is “Grassroots Grants“, and CM will be partnering with Janis Foster Richardson, the Executive Director of Grassroots Grantmakers, to host it. They introduce the call’s topic like this:

Is your community a place for possibilities? Can residents bring their ideas to life, take risks, make connections and ply their creative skills? Grassroots grantmaking focuses on helping organizations turn possibilities into realities.

Through small grants, residents move from dreaming to doing and become critical change makers in their community.

Janis Foster Richardson, executive director of Grassroots Grantmakers, joins CommunityMatters on Thursday, July 31 for an hour-long webinar on how local governments, nonprofits, foundations and other community groups are supporting everyday people in making positive change through small grant programs.

Register today by clicking here, and we hope to hear you on the call!

Before the call, we encourage you to check out the accompanying piece on the CM blog by Caitlyn Horose, which is cross posted below. You can find the original piece here.

Investing in “What Ifs” With Grassroots Grants

No matter how rich or poor, every community has a wealth of ideas, often nascent, for making things better. What if we timed the traffic lights differently? What if we added more trashcans, or lights or widened our sidewalks? What if we turned that blank wall or fence into something more beautiful?

Despite the multitude of improvement ideas, people rarely act on them. Residents may feel limited by time, money, or uncertainty about whether formal permits are required. Grassroots grantmaking is the business of investing in “what ifs” and crazy ideas.

Grassroots grants focus on what people can do better together rather than what agencies or institutions can do for them; help people move from dreaming to doing; and invest in people and associations as critical change-makers in a community.

Municipalities, nonprofits, and community foundations are supporting and stimulating citizen-driven efforts through these small grants.

Here are two organizations doing this work:

The Vancouver Community Foundation’s Neighborhood Small Grants program in Canada supports diverse projects like “Host a Hope” murals to increase community connectedness, a mobile Truck Farm to promote local produce and a digital storytelling project for youth called Callingwood Snapshots. Efforts funded by the initiative encourage neighborhood connections and engagement. Learn more. View the video:

Neighborhood Connections, a 10 year old community building and small grants program of the Cleveland Community Foundation has provided resources for nearly 2,000 projects—public murals, after school programs and even a marching band. All funding decisions are made by a resident grantmaking committee. Watch the video below to learn more.

While many grassroots grant programs are affiliated with community foundations and other funding entities, local governments and nonprofits are also establishing them.

After completing the Golden Vision 2030 and Community Heart & Soul™ planning process, city employees and elected officials in Golden, Colorado wanted residents to take action. Golden created the i-Golden Neighborhood Grants program, offering small grants for resident-led projects that support community values. Through i-Golden grants, the city supports many local efforts including beautification, block parties, and pedestrian safety improvements.

The North Fork Valley Heart & Soul Project in Western Colorado featured a mini-grant program to involve residents in their new community vision. Ten thousand dollars was split between seven winners. Projects included the installation of a community bulletin board, creation of a seed library, and a community kitchen feasibility study.

The Youth Leadership and Philanthropy Initiative of Perry County, Kentucky engages youth through community service, leadership development and small grants. The program helps stem outmigration by teaching the value of investment in the local community. In its first year, the initiative awarded four $500 grants raised from individual donations and fundraising events.

Grassroots Grantmakers is a network of many different types of organizations that share a commitment to the values and principles of asset-based community development and a belief in the power of everyone to be contributing, active citizens and changemakers.

On Thursday, July 31, Janis Foster Richardson, executive director of Grassroots Grantmakers, will join CommunityMatters to share how local governments, nonprofits, foundations and other community groups are supporting positive change through small grant programs.

Register now.