Community Engagement Blog

How to avoid survey fatigue

In this article we look at the different types of survey fatigue and how they can be avoided.

Strategies of Community Engagement: Tactical Urbanism

Mark Dean weighs up recent literature, and shows how, as strategies of community engagement, tactical urbanism can enhance an engaged citizenry.

Shunning citizen engagement in infrastructure planning weakens democracy

Conflict around transport infrastructure planning processes reveals the crucial relationship between public infrastructure and democracy.  

Webinar: Do better qualitative analysis

Capire Consulting Group’s Koel Wrigley takes us through some simple steps to better manage qualitative feedback collected in community engagement activities including; identifying the right times to seek qualitative input, managing contributions, coding and organising feedback collected and reporting on the findings.

Nine Months of Immersive Engagement in Lakewood, Colorado

In February 2017 the City of Lakewood, Colorado launched LakewoodTogether.org, their first comprehensive community engagement site powered by EngagementHQ.

Barwon Water Engages on Much More Than Water

Barwon Water, based in Geelong, one hour South West of Melbourne, is Victoria’s largest regional urban water corporation, and provides water and sewerage services across 8,100 square kilometres to more than 298,000 customers.

Activating Alberta’s new local participation frameworks with online engagement

Online engagement platforms can help Alberta municipalities meet the new requirements of the Municipal Government Act. The clock is ticking on Alberta’s new regulations for local community engagement. The revised Municipal Government Act calls for local councils to create and adopt a comprehensive public participation policy that captures why, when, and how councils will involve […]

How City of Yarmouth used the Ideas tool in search of $50 million smart cities funding

Find out how City of Yarmouth in Canada used ideation to generate community ideas for a smart city funding competition.

Use a community reference group to engage your community

Use a community reference group as a tool in your online community engagement.

City of Hobart take an advocacy stance on single use plastics

Learn how City of Hobart used EHQ to advocate on behalf of their community to ban single use plastics.

Review of Open Government Partnerships reveals tech’s role is minor

Christopher Wilson’s review of open government partnership (OGP) commitments in 61 countries reveals intentions for largely one-sided conversations – and a minor facilitating role for technology.

Citizen Engagement with the Changing City

In an era of increasing urbanization, twenty-first century city-building exacerbates divisions. Urbanite societies are plagued by poverty and social exclusion – not to mention the insidious corporatization that surrounds the embrace of the Smart City. So how does the future city include all citizens, not just the wealthy elite?

Is crowdsourced lawmaking living up to its potential for online citizen participation?

CrowdLaw platforms may encourage representative democratic participation – but they do not necessarily deliver it, finds review.

Engage with young people using the ‘Adopt a Councillor’ idea

Presented by Engage 2 Act board member Andrew Coulson, this webinar looks at the ‘Adopt a Councillor’ concept and explores how it works by looking at how the City of Traverse in the United States successfully implemented the program.

Using surveys and q&a for budget consultations

Surveying your community is a great way to get feedback for your next budget consultations and utilising Q&A can help clarify your communities concerns. In this article we look at how the City of Gold Coast in Australia is using surveys to consult on their 2018 budget and how City of Oshawa in Canada used […]

Three things to consider when doing a budget consultation

If you’re a local government organisation, it’s highly likely that you will be required to consult on an annual operating budget with your community and ratepayers. This is generally to ensure community members support your levels of spending and that they suitably reflect your communities priorities. Getting budget consultations right can take some perfecting and […]

Digital technology in public service: can IT advance democracy?

Yu-Che Chen and Michael J. Ahn offer a bird’s-eye view of digital technology in public service in the Routledge Handbook on Information Technology in Government.

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Relying Solely on Social Media to Engage Your Community? Some Reasons to Rethink That Plan.

Social media is a very useful tool for getting the word out to the community about what you are up to but that it has limitations that are important to recognize as you develop your strategy for social media use.

Global Community Engagement Day Is All About Influencers

It is finally here! Global Community Engagement Day. We thought we would celebrate by doing a company-wide poll of who Bang the Table employees thought were important influencers in the world of community engagement. Though we couldn’t cover all of them, there were a few that really stood out. Becky Hirst – Becky is the President […]