About the 2010 Online Public Engagement Grant Program
From difficult budget decisions to excruciating land use problems, municipal and civic institutions have made legitimately engaging their citizens - from discovering their informed opinions, to inviting their participation in actual solutions - a pragmatic priority. While this is occurring, the power of the web to engage the public in both idea-gathering and solution prioritization has never been greater.
The Common Sense California/UserVoice Online Public Engagement Grant Program (criteria here) supports municipalities, school districts, non-profit organizations, and local news organizations (with an online presence) throughout the state that are attempting to engage citizens online in the policy-making process. We will be awarding at least five (5) projects – each with a value of around $10,000.00.
Common Sense California (CSC) understands that at both the city/region and K-12 school district levels public officials are looking for more effective ways to involve their publics in significant policy decisions. These can range from land use and budget questions on the municipal side to school regionalization and district visioning in the K-12 area.
In seeking a partner expert in creating the online engagement platforms for municipalities and organizations, we chose UserVoice. UserVoice is the leading SaaS solution for online constituent feedback and idea management. UserVoice has helped over 20,000 organizations turn feedback into actionable ideas and happier, more engaged users. This simple solution lets you engage your citizens through both solution-gathering and prioritzation. The implementation is quick and easy. UserVoice reduces the time and labor cost of collecting feedback while simultaneously increasing awareness and citizen engagement within your community.
Uservoice has worked with a number of municipal governments from Santa Cruz to Philadelphia, supporting them with their unique public engagement platform. In fact, in 2009, the UserVoice platform used by Santa Cruz was the foundation of their “Gov 2.0” - awarded effort to involve the public in their budget process.
Here are links to some of their recent municipal public engagement efforts:
- Santa Cruz Budget
- “Ideas for Seattle” (campaign site)
- Philadelphia Police (citizen feedback page)
CSC understands that many organizations and municipalities do not have a budget line item devoted to "citizen engagement", so we developed the Online Public Engagement Grant Program in order to:
- Offer important resources to municipal, educational, and non-profit organizations that are looking to involve their public in an important policy decision.
- Provide consultation to these organizations regarding possible engagement process approaches, connecting leaders with the top online firm in the field.
- Promote the processes of online civic engagement throughout California, so that municipal leaders can involve their community in producing more informed policy outcomes.
Common Sense California invites cities, counties, school districts, nonprofits, and local news outlets to submit a brief online proposal for grant consideration. The value of these grants including training is around $10,000.00. Multiple Online Citizen Engagement Grants will be awarded will be awarded on a “rolling” basis throughout the winter and spring of 2010. The end of the “Phase I” application period is March 8, 2010. Further application phases will be set at that time.