Community Engagement Blog

Online engagement rises to the global affordable housing challenge

Housing is a human right. But solutions to current affordable housing scarcity might be better served by an online community engagement approach.

50 Ways to Promote Your Engagement Project

Great consultations require vision, planning, courage, knowledge, teamwork and execution. Getting people to your online engagement project might seem daunting at first, but with a few creative ideas and a trusted strategy, you can bring thousands of eyes to your project, giving your community an easy way to participate, on their time. Here are 50 ways to help promote your engagement project.

The Gunning Principles and Digital First – Staying out of Court in an Online World

Aligned with the Gunning Principles, digital first public participation can bring about fair – and lawful – public consultation. Learn how a digital first approach to consultation will help public bodies stick to the letter of the law and adhere to the legal principles like Gunning One, Two, Three and Four.

‘Let’s Talk Kamloops’ takes the conversation to the community in its online engagement

The City of Kamloops online engagement hub, Let’s Talk Kamloops, has seen over 21,000 visits and 6800 engaged, informed, and aware participants since its launch in mid-2018.

Thinking beyond the survey: Cambridgeshire’s transport planning is mapping its future

Consult Cambs, the online consultation hub for the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP), is thinking beyond the survey to add a whole new dimension to how community and stakeholders can set out ideas for their shared future.

Places upgrade – Beta

Experience an upgraded Places tool now available for beta testing.

How the City of Casey built historic advocacy campaign success

In his recent webinar with Bang the Table, Sid Wynen reveals how the City of Casey crafted and delivered the Commit to Casey advocacy campaign, securing $1 billion and $3.6 billion in direct and indirect funding prior to the Victorian election. Drawing on his extensive experience in community engagement, advocacy, and public policy – and […]

Activating aspirations: Local Councils’ advocacy drives social transformation

While community-led advocacy is central to the push for social change, council-led advocacy is key ‘to driving change that not only meets community priorities. But it can enable a deeper engagement with communities in the ongoing transformation of neighbourhoods and cities.

Moving Beyond the Survey

Digital engagement offers a convenient way to listen to, and gain feedback from, public and community stakeholders. For meaningful connection to happen, we need to create a safe online place for public debate. A place to exchange ideas A place to learn from other people A place to read and watch videos about important matters […]

Between the spectra: Arnstein’s Ladder plugs the gap of IAP2 spectrum

Adopting Arnstein’s 1969 Ladder of Citizen Participation alongside the current widespread use of the IAP2 spectrum might help governments engage more meaningfully with their citizens, recent research suggests. In Australia – indeed globally – governments increasingly recognise the need to shift toward more inclusive decision making processes. But there remains, what scholars Aaron Davis and […]

How taking the conversation online transformed engagement in the City of Kingston, Ontario

Get Involved Kingston, the City of Kingston’s new engagement hub, has seen 6000 registered participants tuning in to have their say on local projects and priorities. Complementing the City’s offline participation opportunities, Get Involved Kingston’s online engagement has further opened up new dimensions in how the community and City staff talk about projects and ideas. […]

Single Sign On (SSO)

In this blog, we look at what is Single Sign On, how does it look & why use SSO in EHQ. SSO is an add-on to EngagementHQ and is not included in any standard license.

2018 in Review – Bang the Table

At times, 2018 felt like an apt year for reflection on digital engagement. It would be impossible to overstate the importance of community engagement in the current global climate. And yet, its increasing focus has driven not only deeper engagement with communities and residents but buoyed the dramatic shift toward digital-first engagement.

EHQ Year in Review 2018

Before we launch into what we expect to be a very exciting 2019 for EHQ, it’s worth taking a moment to look back at the year gone by and review some of the updates you might have missed.

Survey Analysis

Explore your survey insights with survey analysis, featuring filter, compare and crosstab (cross-tab) functionality.

Upgrade: Shapefile Support in EHQ Places

Humanising urban environments: why urban renewal projects need local communities’ interventions

Without question, local communities play a pivotal role in urban renewal. Moreover, there is a discernible impact arising from a community-engagement approach to contemporary city-building, where support for social capital is prioritised.

Quickly Clone Content From One Widget To The Next

Widget Cloning: When you are done cloning, simply configure the widget to display the content you have just cloned into the new project.

Speak up Fayetteville: Fayetteville’s new public engagement portal has plenty to talk about

Speak Up Fayetteville, the dedicated public engagement site for the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas, keeps the community coming back for more as a one-stop hub for a growing array of projects and involvement opportunities. Linda Deberry, Communications Program Manager, reveals that a centralized engagement tool, a strategic overlapping of projects timed to cross-pollinate participation, and […]

Inclusive Strategies for Community Engagement – Designing a Better Public Meeting

I spent the last week traveling through Eastern Canada with Bang the Table’s North American Engagement team and our Co-Founder and Impact Lead, Crispin Butteriss, PhD. We got together to share ideas, plan for the future, and hear a series of presentations on Crispin’s emerging ideas and concepts regarding the practice of digital deliberation and digital first […]