Citizen Engagement

Why is Good Citizen Engagement Important?

This is an excerpt from our brand-new guide, Your Citizen Engagement Checklist: 18 Strategies for Success. Download the guide for free here, and in the comments, share with us: what your strategies for success in engaging your citizens? We let the GovLoop audience do the talking. Below, read six reasons our readers think citizen engagement,Read… Read more »

How Much Would You Tip the Government?

Pollution. Poverty. Health. Infrastructure. These are just a few of the extraordinary challenges government face today. With increased citizens demands, coupled with decreased public resources, government is often placed in a very difficult position to adequately meet the needs of its diverse array of citizens. Throw Congressional gridlock into the mix and you have aRead… Read more »

It’s Time for Police Departments to Start Measuring the Customer Experience

In response to recent tragedies, many commentators have suggested requiring every police officer to wear a video camera and microphone at all times. Some activists even suggest that these videos be publicly live-streamed for maximum accountability. That’s not necessarily a bad idea, despite some technical, budgetary, and legal hurdles. Other commentators have pointed out thatRead… Read more »

Try Crowdsourcing: No Surprises on Election Day

It’s no surprise that local governments are utilizing crowdsourcing to solve some of their biggest problems. Crowdsourcing, after all, uses some of the same basic tenets as democracy: where the decisions that serve a body are governed by the majority. Crowdsourcing is being used as a means to allocate budgets, cut waste, and solve longstandingRead… Read more »

Research. Communications. Public Engagement. Oh My!

As an engagement practitioner, I find that people are often confused about the distinction between research, communications and public engagement. Of course clearing up this confusion often begins with knowing whether each field is seen by the audience as being distinct and separate or just one big mess of government stuff. And whether there isRead… Read more »

Can Pinterest Make Local Public Engagement More Effective?

We were intrigued by this commsgodigital piece on the ways that Pinterest can be used by local government officials for public engagement, and we wanted to share it with the NCDD community. The article was penned by Andrew Coulson, a local community engagement officer, and you can read it below or find the original commsgodigitalRead… Read more »

Digital Engagement Strategy Series

By John Simpson, Engagement Consultant What should go into your digital engagement strategy can be a complex and organizationally challenging question. The specifics of your own strategy are usually discovered with some internal “soul searching” and by nailing down exactly what public engagement is for you and your leadership. Yet, there are a few basicRead… Read more »

How to Build Partnerships the Right Way

In government, we often talk about the importance of building public-private partnerships. In San Jose, they aren’t just talking about building partnerships – they’re actually doing it. The Silicon Valley Talent Partnership, a facilitator of public private partnerships, is working on ways to leverage Silicon Valley’s highly skilled constituents for volunteer efforts to address someRead… Read more »