Use public meetings and in-person interactions to tell people how they can engage online through Polco.
Share your blog and FAQ page with all staff who interact with residents and other stakeholders, so they can feel comfortable telling people about this new civic engagement effort and can answer questions or directing residents to the right resources.
Make sure those who present to the public or lead workshops, meetings, open houses or town halls know about the tool.
Let them know they could supplement their in-person meetings with online engagement.
Have them share the polco.us/[shorturl] at their meetings to get more residents to sign up.
Provide them with fliers to hand out or a link to the blog so they can easily share.
Ask them to put polco.us/[shorturl] on the last page of presentations and call it out.
Some potential talking points:
The City makes decisions that will influence the character of the community for years or even decades to come and wants to include residents’ voices in the planning process. You can join your neighbors on polco.us/[shorturl], where the City will occasionally/regularly post questions to invite resident input.
The topic(s) that the City is currently asking about [is/are] [current topics].
The City will also be posting about this on Facebook and Twitter. Please share those messages with your friends and family, to ensure participation by a wide variety of residents. Be sure your voice is heard.
Once you have answered the question, you will be asked to provide your ZIP code to confirm where you live. This lets us be sure we are hearing from each person only once and lets us know which general area of the city respondents live in. Your response will remain anonymous to the City, and your information will be securely stored on Polco.
We hope you will choose to provide an email address to Polco, so we can contact you occasionally with new questions. Your email will be used only for questions from public agencies that need your feedback.