Community Engagement Resources
This page highlights a variety of approaches for obtaining public feedback and for involving residents in shaping the plans and programs that significantly affect their lives. It covers promising practices, case studies, tools, and examples for Washington State local governments that you can use to develop and improve your agency’s community’s engagement practices.
Overview
Effective community engagement practices create a vehicle for participatory local democracy by giving members of the public the opportunity to become directly involved in guiding policy decisions that will shape the future of their community. Meaningful engagement that is based upon a two-way communication process between the public and their elected community leaders can play an important role in efforts to restore and build trust in government. Community engagement and outreach programs will also be key components of any efforts by local governments to address social equity and inclusion.
New and rapidly evolving communications technologies are creating more ways for local governments to connect and engage with the public through remote meetings, email and text alerts, social media, mobile apps, and more. More people are online today and local governments that take advantage of digital technologies will be more effective at engaging with them.
There are no one-size-fits-all approaches to community engagement efforts. Local governments have a range of options and methods from which they can choose depending upon their particular needs and circumstances, many of which are presented here, along with recommended resources and current program examples.
Resource Guides for Community Engagement
There are many sites that publish, curate, and make available extensive resources relating to community engagement and public participation tools and techniques. Here are a few that we have found to be most useful, together with links to some selected references.
- George Mason University: Fostering Inclusive Public Engagement in Local Government (2020) — Offers ways to integrate digital technology tools into various forms of public engagement.
- Governing
- Accelerating Public Engagement: A Roadmap for Local Government (2016) — Offers case studies from U.S. cities that have used a technology-based approach to boost outreach to hard-to-reach residents.
- The Modern City: A Proactive Approach to Civic Engagement — Provides an overview of the challenges of traditional public engagement models and how unified civic engagement systems can be used to connect people and their governments.
- IBM Center for the Business of Government
- Beyond Citizen Engagement: Involving the Public in Co-Delivering Government Services (2013) — Highlights three different types of co-delivery initiatives that can increase engagement, each offering different roles and opportunities for people to engage in public services: co-design, co-production, and co-delivery of public services.
- A Manager’s Guide to Evaluating Citizen Participation (2012) — Covers why public participation matters, the challenges of evaluation, and how to evaluate both the process and impact of civic participation. Sample worksheets and case examples are included.
- Institute for Local Government: The Basics of Public Engagement — Explains what participation is, what the benefits are, first steps, and other topics.
- National League of Cities: Planning for Stronger Local Democracy, A Field Guide for Local Officials (2013) — Offers suggestions for building skills, capacities, and spaces (civic infrastructure) for stronger local democracy, model practices from pioneering communities and a collaborative process for constructing a better framework for public engagement.
- Public Agenda: Strengthening and Sustaining Public Engagement (2017) — Intended to help residents decide what kinds of engagement they want and to help people plan for an overall system that features those engagement opportunities.
Frameworks for Assessing Community Engagement Needs
Several organizations have created community engagement frameworks based on increasing levels of engagement and the public’s role at each level. Participation levels typically range from inform, consult, involve, and collaborate, up to empower. The engagement frameworks are usually presented in a matrix, which can be helpful in deciding on the types of meeting formats and engagement techniques that may be best suited for specific engagement needs and objectives.
One of the best frameworks is the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum of Public Participation and the accompanying Public Participation Toolbox matrices.
Public Meeting Tips, Tools, and Techniques
Even as smartphones, mobile apps, social media, and other digitally-enabled interactions become ever-more ubiquitous, face-to-face public meetings are still one of the most common ways that local governments engage and interact with the public. The most common settings in which local officials and members of the public meet occur during regularly scheduled meetings of city and county councils or commissions. Public hearings account for yet another large portion of the types of meetings where local officials interact with the public.
Dealing with Conflict and Disruptions During Public Meetings
From time to time, elected bodies are faced with conducting controversial, emotionally charged meetings or public hearings where tensions are high and tempers may flare. Such meetings can really test the members of the elected body and staff. Here are some resources that can help you to prepare for difficult meetings and manage them in ways that can make them less stressful and more productive for everyone.
- Institute for Local Government (ILG)
- Western City Magazine
Guides to Help the Public Participate Effectively in Meetings
For first-time visitors, city or county council/commission meetings can sometimes be confusing and intimidating. To help new visitors or anyone else who may need some assistance with how to participate effectively in meetings, many local governments offer guidelines and suggestions that are designed to help attendees participate in public meetings. These are often posted on a legislative body’s webpage or on advisory board or commission webpages. Printed versions can be distributed at meeting sites.
Here are a few examples of guides designed by Washington local government:
- Bellingham: Guide to City Council Meetings — Offers information on types of council actions, tips for talking to the council, council and committee meeting dates, links to download meeting agendas, packets, meeting notes, and more.
- Kirkland: How to Participate in a Design Review Board Meeting — Includes basic ways to participate in the design review board process.
- Public Health-Seattle, King County: Community Engagement Toolkit (2014) — Created in partnership with external nonprofits, this toolkit offers tips and best practices, particularly on engaging hard-to-reach populations.
- Whatcom County: Participate in Virtual Council Meetings — Includes instructions for speaking to the council during an open session or a public hearing.
Audience Interaction and Polling Tools
Audience interaction and polling tools include devices like “pulse pads" and cloud-based apps that collect responses from the audience using various electronic devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets. These tools offer an effective way to gather audience input that can be tabulated and instantly shared, making them popular with audiences. Since input is collected anonymously, this can help in eliciting more candid responses.
Below are examples of how such tools have been used in Washington.
- Marysville: Special Meeting (2013) — Participants were invited to use pulse pads to register their priorities for short- and long-term needs as part of a downtown and waterfront revitalization project.
- Sequim: Citizens help to shape Sequim 120 (2012) — Sequim conducted a visioning open house and equipped participants with pulse pads to provide instant response to a 53-question survey. The pulse pad polling supplemented a variety of interactive activities, including futures mapping exercises, a take-home "word cloud" questionnaire, and an activity focused on transportation values/priorities.
Public Meeting Formats
This section highlights several types of public meeting formats that are frequently used by local governments depending upon their particular engagement needs and objectives. Engagement frameworks like the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation are often used to guide which approaches to use, and it may involve more than one format.
Public Hearings
Local governments are sometimes required by state law to hold public hearings for legislative or quasi-judicial purposes.
- Legislative hearings are usually held to obtain public input on important legislative policy matters that affect a wide range of citizens, such as those required for budget adoption or comprehensive land use plan updates.
- Quasi-judicial hearings involve the legal rights of specific, identifiable parties, such as consideration of land-use variances or permits or site-specific rezones.
Public hearings can occur as part of a regular or special public meeting or, in some circumstances, can be separate from it. Public hearings are obligatory when due process is required or when a specific statute or local regulation requires one. Local governments may also hold a public hearing when they want public input on a sensitive or controversial policy issue that has broad community interest. Testimony from both sides of an issue is usually recorded for public record, which generates a report summarizing key points.
Recommended Resources
- MRSC: Public Hearings — Provides an overview of local government public hearings, including types, procedural requirements, and tips for successful hearings.
- Institute for Local Government: Getting the Most out of Public Hearings (2005) — Offers practical ideas to maximize the effectiveness of public hearings.
Remote Meetings
Local governments use remote meeting technology to connect with the public via web-based platforms or phone conferencing tools that allow individuals to attend and participate in public meetings.
Remote meetings became the default meeting format during the COVID-19 pandemic when public health mandates on social distancing made it impossible to hold in-person meetings. They remain a feature of our post-pandemic world as local governments look for more ways to promote inclusion and participation in their communities. Hybrid meeting formats that mix in-person and remote attendance have become part of the new normal going forward.
These are examples of local governments employing the remote meeting format and taking public comment for remote or hybrid meetings.
- Marysville City Council Meeting Remote Public Comment Form
- Monroe City Council Rules of Procedure (2023) — Includes section on remote meetings, both during periods of a proclaimed emergency and in other circumstances. Lists virtual platforms that are approved for remote participation.
Open Houses, Workshops, and Forums
Local governments often convene informal gatherings — like open houses, workshops, and forums — that provide attendees with a “hands on” experience where they have the opportunity to interact with officials, department staff, and each other, to ask questions, provide feedback, and learn about particular issues, proposals, and projects that affect them.
These events are usually facilitated by staff but may also include participation by elected officials. Their informality sets them apart from more formal, regular legislative body meetings and public hearings, which contributes to their effectiveness in attracting members of the public. Don’t forget the coffee, tea, soft drinks, and snacks, which can go a long way toward creating a welcoming environment.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- ILG: Planning Public Forums: Questions to Guide Local Officials (2007) — Offers useful questions to ask and design considerations for deciding what type of forum will best provide feedback and information.
- Issaquah Public Engagement Toolkit (2023) — Suggests strategies that project managers can use when developing customized engagement plans.
- Mountlake Terrace: A Vision for the Mountlake Town Center (2006) — Winner of APA/PAW Citizen Involvement Award. Process included neighborhood roundtables, developer forum, design workshops, and open houses in addition to public hearings.
- Walla Walla Park Street IRRP Project Virtual Open House — Includes a video providing an overview of a proposed street project near downtown Walla Walla, complete with goals, analysis, and timeline.
Focus Groups and Other Small Group Processes
Focus group meetings provide fertile ground for understanding the unique needs and interests of various community groups. They are designed to get at the unique perspectives/opinions of specific groups, to benefit from the groups' shared knowledge, and to understand how various groups would be affected by programs or policies.
Some communities chose to break a larger audience into small "roundtable" discussion groups to focus on specific issues since the small group setting can offer a more comfortable setting for speaking freely, listening, and interacting with others.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Federal Highway Administration: Public Involvement Techniques for Transportation Decisionmaking, Small Group Techniques (2015)
- ICMA: Engaging Citizens in Oklahoma City to Improve Public Performance Reporting, — Reviews how the city used focus groups to help improve their performance reports.
- Iowa State University Extension: Can You Call It a Focus Group? (2004) — Offers distinguishing features between focus and other small groups, and appropriate/ inappropriate uses of focus groups
- University Place: Resident Focus Group Report (2011) — Includes sections on focus group recruitment, group discussion guide, and procedures.
Charrettes
Charrettes pair resident and stakeholder groups with design professionals and other experts in intense, creative work sessions held over a short time period. The process promotes consensus-building toward a common vision, harnessing the talents and energy of design professionals (as well as citizen participants) to help participants visualize alternatives and to recommend design solutions.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Michigan State University: National Charrette Institute — Offers webinars, in-house training sessions, and other training resources. See their three-minute video: What is a Charrette? for a definition of charrettes and a description of their use. Also shows a video of a charrette in process.
- Planning Commissioners Journal: An Introduction to Charrettes (2008)
- Port Angeles and The Gateway Corridor: Reconnecting to the Community: A Sustainable Design Assessment Team Final Report (2009)
- Roslyn Urban Forest Design Charrette Report (2011)
Equity and Inclusion
Community engagement efforts that are focused on equity and inclusion are designed to increase access to local government information and resources by people of diverse races, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations, physical ability, and socio-economic status through the implementation of inclusive outreach strategies, plans, or policies. Inclusive outreach and engagement programs seek to build and maintain strong and sustainable relationships with community groups that have been historically underrepresented in all aspects of local government and community life.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Bellevue Diversity Advantage Initiative — The city adopted its Diversity Advantage Plan in 2014 and provides a range of services to its multicultural population.
- Everett Mayoral Directive: Community Engagement and Inclusion (2018) — Outlines initiatives to increase engagement, particularly with underrepresented members of the community and young people, and to improve access to city government.
- Groundwork USA: Best Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement (2018) — Offers tips for engaging historically underrepresented populations in visioning and planning.
- ICMA: Meeting People Where They Are (2019) — Discusses how to lower barriers to civic participation.
- Institute for Local Government (ILG)
- Increasing Access to Public Meetings and Events for People with Disabilities (2015)
- Ten Ideas to Encourage Immigrant Engagement - A Tip Sheet for Local Officials (2015) — Offers tips drawn from the experience of California cities and counties.
- MRSC: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Local Governments — Provides resources, tools, and sample documents related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives taking place in Washington State local governments.
- Seattle: Inclusive Outreach and Public Engagement Guide (rev. 2012) — Outlines outreach and public engagement processes inclusive of people of diverse races, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations, and socio-economic status.
- Shoreline Diversity & Inclusion Program — Focuses on increasing the capacity of city staff to promote service equity and inclusion, increasing access to city information and services by diverse communities, and increasing support for diverse communities.
Social Media
Local governments have fully embraced social media platforms in their efforts to find new and more effective ways to engage with the public and create greater trust and transparency. Social media platforms offer a variety of ways for agencies to share news about local events and issues, address residents' concerns, provide emergency information, and showcase engaging content. Popular platforms have included Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, and NextDoor.
While most local governments have been using popular social media platforms as a communications and engagement tool, in a new twist, some are also using AI-powered technologies (e.g., Zencity) to tap into and analyze community sentiment about local news and events as it is being expressed on those same social media platforms.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Digital.gov: Improving the Accessibility of Social Media in Government Toolkit — Contains helpful tips, real-life examples and best practices to ensure that your social media content is usable and accessible to all citizens, including those with disabilities.
- Government Social Media — Supports public sector social media professionals by hosting national events, facilitating local training, and organizing a community of social media managers working in local government across the country.
- King County: Social Media Handbook — Guidelines for the creation, oversight, maintenance, and documentation of social media accounts used by the county.
- Mill Creek: Social Media Policy — Guidelines for the city’s social media sites to ensure consistency, accuracy, value to citizens, and compliance with state and federal laws.
- MRSC: Social Media Policies — Provides an overview of various approaches to social media policies for local governments, including sample policy language and examples.
Email and Text Alerts
Email and text alert services give citizens the ability to sign up to receive updates, notices, and news about the issues they care about and to have them sent directly to their email inboxes or smartphones. Email and text alerts are particularly effective for local issues and projects that will play out over an extended period of time since they can provide timely updates about milestones, new developments, and opportunities for more direct engagement as the issue or project moves forward.
Alert systems are also used for emergency communications purposes, providing subscribers with real-time information about severe weather events, public safety or health concerns, utility disruptions, major traffic incidents, and other similar emergency notices.
Examples
- Kennewick: Notify Me — Subscription link includes list of prior notifications
- Sammamish: email and text alert updates — Allows residents to sign up for email and text alerts on topics of particular interest to them, including alerts on road projects, city council meetings, parks and recreation news, and many other items on the topic menu.
- Seattle: Alert Seattle — Offers information on subscribing, types of alerts to sign up for, and privacy and contact information.
- Whatcom County: Notify Me email alerts — Provides an extensive menu of email alerts including general notifications, bid postings, departmental “news flashes,” and agendas for the county council and various advisory boards and commissions.
Mobile Apps
Mobile apps allow agencies to engage with residents through mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops on a vareity of issues. For example SeeClickFix allows residents to photograph and report problems like potholes or damaged streetlights, submit this to a public works department, get a tracking number assigned, and receive status alerts until the problem is resolved.
Apps also offer the ability to “push” notifications out to subscribers, which has proven to be an effective way of engaging with citizens.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Bellevue MyBellevue App — Allows residents to request services and access city news, jobs, and social media.
- Federal Way "Eyes on Federal Way” — Enables residents to report non-emergency issues from their smartphone. The app also tags the specific location of the issue through the user phone’s global positioning system, making it easy for city staff to respond.
- IBM Center for the Business of Government: Using Mobile Apps in Government (2015) — Documents the state of mobile apps at the federal, state, and local levels
- Shoreline Submit a Service Request — Allows people to report and track non-emergency issues through the city’s website or via mobile app.
Web-Based Engagement Platforms
Web-based engagement platforms allow local governments to share information and solicit ideas and opinions from residents on community issues, plans, and projects. These tools are designed to facilitate public participation in local decision-making.
The webpages below are examples of how an agency can offer the public information on current projects (with links to project documentation) as well as the opportunity to ask the agency questions, take surveys, share or coment on items, and discuss project plans with other residents, all in an online format
- Bellevue: Engaging Bellevue
- King County Engagement Hub
- Mercer Island: Let’s Talk Mercer Island
- Olympia: Engage Olympia
Participatory Budgeting
Participatory budgeting includes a range of engagement techniques that center around involving citizens in the local government budgeting process, either as an educational exercise, where, for example, they might have the chance to build their own budget through a budget simulation “game,” or more directly as part of a process in which a portion of a jurisdiction’s budget is set aside to allow community members, often through neighborhood organizations, to vote on how to use it.
There are a variety of participatory budgeting methods and the best match will depend on how your jurisdiction wants to engage with the public, the types of projects that can be funded, and how much funding is available.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Institute for Local Government
- A Local Official’s Guide to Public Engagement in Budgeting (2010) — Describes five general approaches that local agencies use to involve residents in the budget process.
- Public Engagement in Budgeting (2015) — Provides an overview and basic understanding, plus links to more detailed information.
- Seattle Your Voice, Your Choice — City residents democratically decide how to spend a portion of the city's budget on small-scale park and street improvements. The city reports on previously funded projects at the History of Participatory Budgeting in Seattle.
- Sequim The People’s Project — Gave residents the opportunity to vote on proposed projects included in the 2020 budget.
Advisory Boards/Commissions
Local governments have long used advisory boards/commissions to assist elected officials in a number of policy-making areas. The most common types are the standing boards/commissions, such as those for planning, human services, and parks and recreation. Members of these advisory bodies are usually appointed by the governing body of the city, town, or county, and they serve multi-year terms.
Ad hoc advisory bodies are usually appointed and convened for a limited period of time to consider a program, project, or set of issues and to report back with their advice and/or recommendations to the governing body. A task force is similar in some respects but is assigned a specific task, often with a time limit for reaching a conclusion and resolving a difficult issue, subject to ratification by official decision-makers.
For more information and examples, see our webpage on Advisory Boards and Commissions.
Youth Engagement
Youth engagement programs are designed to provide opportunities for youth to learn more about their local government, develop leadership skills through hands-on experiences, and contribute to the conversation on community issues, including those that uniquely affect young people. For more information and examples, see our page Youth Participation in Local Government.
Citizen Education
Citizen education programs are designed to give residents the knowledge and skills they need to understand and more fully participate in their local government. Examples include citizen academies, community leadership academies, police ride-along programs, and community emergency response teams (CERT).
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Kennewick Mini-Citizen’s Academy — Offered in 2023 as a free two-night program that covers several aspects of local government.
- Marysville Community Emergency Response Team
- Tacoma Police Department: Citizen’s Academy
- University of North Carolina School of Government: Citizen Academies — Acts as a clearinghouse on citizens' academies, information, and innovative practices culled from dozens of successful programs across the country.
Volunteer Programs
Many local governments have established volunteer programs in their communities to take advantage of the diverse talents and interests of their residents. Examples include environmental stewardship, park maintenance, community emergency response, customer service support, special events support, and many others. For more information and examples, see our page on Volunteer Programs and Policies.
Community Newsletters
Local governments have long produced newsletters as a way to share information about special events, agency activities, announcements, and more. Historically these have been in a printed format, either mailed directly to residents or distributed through a local newspaper, but in more recent years many local governments have developed e-newsletters to deliver content electronically to subscribers’ desktops, smartphones, and other devices.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Bellevue: It's Your City Newsletter — Packed with information about city projects, activities, calendar events, resources, and city contacts, and issues. Also see Neighborhood News.
- Boston, MA: Designing a Seamless Newsletter Experience, (2020) — By reducing the amount of text, and regrouping reader’s actions in each section into just one button, Boston was able to make their newsletters scannable and readable in less than five minutes. Grouping information using iconography also enabled them to maintain the amount of information shared with the readers while keeping it organized and accessible.
- Snohomish County: E-newsletters — Subscription topics include county executive updates, council district updates, emergency management preparedness, and more.
Surveys
Community surveys play an important role in gaining insights into the public's views and opinions about a wide variety of issues and can reach hundreds or even thousands of individuals via phone, mail, email, or online.
If, however, an agency has small sample sizes and low response rates, the survey may have difficulty achieving results that are statistically valid. When that is the case, their primary value of a survey should be to provide general insights into community attitudes and opinions that may or may not accurately represent the opinions of the entire population.
Recommended Resources
- Bloomberg Cities: 5 Secrets of Successful Community Surveys (2019)
- Governing: What Citizens Really Think (2018) — Discusses the pros and cons of civic-engagement platforms and public opinion research.
- ICMA
- Ten Common Community Survey Mistakes to Avoid (2018) — Offers suggestions on how to avoid conducting a survey process that hurts response rates, yields inaccurate data, and hinders the usefulness of survey results.
- The Voice of the Public — Examines why surveys are valuable for finding out what residents want and need.
- Public Technology Institute: Citizen Participation Processes — Reviews popular survey methods, looking at relative cost, response rates, and implementation speed.
Speakers Bureaus
A number of communities have established speakers bureaus, populated by staff or others, that are available to make presentations on local government programs or topics.
Since service organizations, school classrooms, and other community organizations need short programs or speakers on a regular basis, it is a great opportunity for local jurisdictions to get the word out about services and programs, emerging issues, or to discuss plans on the horizon. It is also a great way to stay connected with the community and to glean the interests/concerns of the community group hosting the talk.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Richland Speakers’ Bureau — City staff are available to speak to community groups or schools on a variety of topics by appointment. Tours of some city facilities also available.
- University of Kansas: Developing a Speaker’s Bureau — As part of the university's broader community toolbox, this chapter offers an overview of steps involved in creating a speakers bureau, including how they can be used to raise public awareness of local issues, increasing your organization's visibility, increasing public understanding, and providing positive role models.
Tours
Guided, self-guided, or even virtual tours offer a first-hand look at agency facilities and operations, giving viewers an increased understanding and appreciation of how thier government works. Popular facility tours include water and wastewater treatment plants, police departments, fire stations, city halls, and county courthouses.
Recommended Resources and Examples
- Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Council of Governments: South Loop Trail Tour — Offers a Google Maps tour of the South Cowlitz River Trail Loop via YouTube
- IAP2: Public Participation Toolbox — See sections on hosting open houses, tours, and field trips.
- King County: Visit Our Sites — Offers guided tours of wastewater treatment plants
- Richland Tours — Offers virtual tours of sites and facilities.
- Spokane
- Infill Housing Self-Guided Tour — A collection of local examples to demonstrate how well-designed infill projects can fit different types of areas.
- Waste to Energy Virtual Tour — Offers a 360 tour of the Waste to Energy facility, including prominent features, like a boiler.