How can we enhance public engagement in Hamilton by further utilizing the Engage Hamilton platform?
Project Context: Engage Hamilton is a new and interactive online space for Hamiltonians to learn about select City initiatives, share their feedback and engage with their community. Engage Hamilton will be used to gather online feedback from and engage with residents about select City of Hamilton projects, policies and initiatives. Public engagement usually involves attending an open house, public meeting or providing a letter to Council. To enhance in-person engagement efforts, Engage Hamilton will help reach a broader audience for those who may not have the chance to participate in person, gather more resident feedback and offer the community a new way to provide input on projects.
Challenge Summary: While the City has a number of decision making related online engagement projects planned for the remainder of the year (i.e., projects that gather resident feedback to inform different phases or elements of project and input is provided to City Council to inform a decision), we also need to include “relationship based projects” to help build our online community, attract different participants to the platform, and ultimately increase our database.
City Staff: Cindy Mutch, Senior Project Manager, Community Engagement
Faculty, Course, and Students: CityLAB Semester in Residence 2020, Students: Adam, Zoe, Maheen, Divya
Deliverables:
Research community needs and interests
Generate ideas for relationship based online engagement projects
Develop and test draft project ideas
Based on consultation results, develop an online engagement project (or projects) including project purpose, goals, audience, engagement tools, messaging, and outreach/communication strategy
Pitch project campaign/ ideas to members of Engage Hamilton team
Where will the work go?
The report will be sent to Cindy Mutch, Community Initiatives, Digital Innovation and Strategic Partnership
It will be used to potentially implement the potential projects in 2021