Engaging on your Policies I Collaborate

In achieving the development of a policy that gets to the heart of your community's needs you could consider co-design elements utilising other EngagementHQ tools that draw on your community sharing in an open and safe manner.

Involving your community and allowing them to share their insights, ideas and experiences helps to build trust in the engagement process and shape Council policies and decisions from the very beginning.

Option 1 - Ideas Board

Ideas provides “virtual” post it notes for individuals to add their ideas to a collective board. Being part of a collaborative contribution to Council is much more enticing to individuals and provides the opportunity for them to easily encourage others to join. People can like the ideas that inspire them most, helping align your priorities with what matters most to the community. The ideas tool is an excellent tool for driving participation in your projects as it has an easy to use interface.

Option 2 - Discussion Forum

Discussion forums have existed since the early days of the internet and long before social media allowing people to share and connect. They remain to this day, the simplest, most transparent and most democratic tool for engaging your community online.

A well facilitated online forum has the potential to strip away power relations between participants and provides a safe two way dialogue on topic unlike social media threads. Council can respond to contributions, drive further dialogue and seek clarity in a way that is not possible with a simple survey.