Localities are achieving a higher level of citizen engagement by strengthening connections with and in their communities.  As stated by Svara and Denhardt in Connected Communities, “Citizen engagement focuses on revitalizing democracy, building citizenship and reinforcing a sense of community, and it cannot be equated with one-way exchanges between government and citizens.”   The examples below demonstrate the impact and importance of utilizing technology to successfully stretch beyond traditional means to tackle challenging problems, build community and foster a civic culture.   

Durham, NC - Great Things Happen When Performance Measures Intersect with Community Engagement
A key component of the City of Durham’s Strategic Plan is their Performance Management System dashboard and the creation of the Citizens’ Oversight Committee.  ClearPoint/Ascendant Strategies provided the software tool to highlight progress made on citywide measures and initiatives, identifying both positive and negative trends.  It allows management, residents and the news media to monitor City departments and to measure progress towards meeting organizational outcomes. The dashboard display is easy to read and offers a centralized point for management to capture and report specific data from each department, thus providing a “snapshot” of performance for residents.  A semi-annual report will be published for our residents highlighting the progress made on the measures associated with the five City Council goals.

The site was developed with the support of a Citizens Oversight Committee, in an effort to have a user-friendly and consistent look and feel across all measures and to make the identification of trends, status, and targets more legible.   

Auburn, Alabama – Using GIS to Enhance Public Engagement
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) multi‐year initiative to update base flood elevations nationwide and to modernize flood maps for the digital age required more than 20,000 communities participating in the National Flood Insurance Program to review, modify and pass a Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance for their respective communities. FEMA required every community to issue a preliminary report and map, provide public notification and hold community meetings to afford affected property owners the opportunity to appeal the new flood plain maps as proposed. The City of Auburn’s Public Works department spearheaded this project for Auburn and worked closely with FEMA to make sure that all requirements were fulfilled.  

A key element in the successful completion of this project was to engage citizens during the map modernization process.  Auburn officials wanted to utilize every tool at their disposal to reach out to as many citizens as possible. In addition to the traditional community meetings and the paper‐based notifications, the City of Auburn’s Information Technology Department, Geographic Information Services (GIS) Division created an interactive, web‐based mapping solution to allow the public to browse both the current and proposed flood plain maps and to see proposed changes, as they happened, throughout the process.

The level of use of the FEMA interactive map by Auburn’s citizens proved the value of community engagement through such interaction. The FEMA flood map project’s success spurred the City’s continued use of GIS to increase interaction with citizens, engaging them in the governing process.

Bayside, Wisconsin-Emotion Right Brain Engagement:  Make Them Open Up
While Bayside Village has always tried to be a leader in employing new-age communication techniques, they have had to re-evaluate how and what they communicate with residents.   In addition to their Friday email newsletter, the Bayside Buzz, they have also implemented the “Tuesday Talk.” As they identified the need to be more pro-active, informative on one specific subject, and further engage our residents to have a conversation on a more frequent basis, they developed the Tuesday Talk, a short, usually one topic email that is sent every Tuesday.   While their “open rate” for email communications was well above industry average, they were not satisfied with the penetration and began exploring new ideas to further engage people and get them the information they needed about their community. In re-evaluating their communication strategy, they adapted to their audience and began changing our stagnant headlines with catchy, intriguing, and provocative headlines of our emails from:  1. “What’s Organize Fuzzy and Warm;” 2. “Don’t Flush That!”  By simply developing a catchy snapshot of the topic, it has generated more interest, citizen engagement and an “open rate” nearly 25 percent higher than what they were already experiencing. One resident replied to an email regarding prescription medication, stating, “Your emails are a kick. Your funny headings pull me in to read what’s up each time. Good work on making the running of our community so much fun to read about, even if we need to be chided occasionally about some failure to do the right thing!.”

Olathe, Kansas-Leveraging Technology to Promote Citizen Engagement
The City of Olathe, no longer content at announcing public hearings and hoping for attendance, sought to make it easier for residents to voice opinions, preferences and priorities. The City found new ways to engage its citizens and obtain input on its budget process.  The City was able to reach citizens in a new and innovative way during its budget process through an interactive e-Town Hall event. The inaugural e-Town Hall allowed residents to engage in the budget process through new technology, and the Budget 101 video served as an introduction to the 2012 budget, which was posted to the City’s website and Facebook page.  This was the largest number of residents to engage in the budget process in Olathe’s history, and the new budget process resulted in a better informed discussion of the overall budget and specific items of interest in the community. From the launch of the e-Town Hall until its live broadcast, the City’s Facebook page experienced a 60 percent increase in post views, as compared to similar periods.  The results have been unprecedented success in gaining citizen input—in some cases, from residents who have never participated previously.