Community-based non-profit
Digital public engagement at a hyperlocal level
A significant river-based redevelopment is underway along a 52-mile stretch of a major global city. Our client and their broad coalition of stakeholders, including local and state government as well as architecture and engineering agencies, wanted to improve on traditional public engagement methods, which can prove problematic.
They partnered with AudienceNet to develop and implement an approach to public engagement that went beyond in person meetings, including insights and suggestions representative of the whole community rather than a select few.
Our work has proven influential to high level decision makers and has been presented to government, non-profit, and private sector organisations.
The findings were noted as the most robust public engagement data for a project of its type. Most importantly, community members’ insights became part of the planning process, ensuring that the redevelopment will seek to enrich their lives.
Our method
Over a series of projects, we developed and streamlined a two-phase approach.Phase one
- The first phase was a demographically representative survey, conducted amongst residents living within a two-mile radius of the project site.
- After creating a demographic profile of the catchment area using census data, recruitment was conducted employing online, phone interview and in person methods.
- Demographic quotas were set to ensure that the findings were statistically representative of the community, which was highly important given that the data would inform consequential decisions in the planning process.
Phase two
- For the second phase, a select group of participants, all having taken the original survey, were invited to take part in an online community.
- Within this, AudienceNet moderators led in-depth discussions with real community members about how the redevelopment projects could best support the community.
