Plus, how one city used community engagement to address homelessness, polarization in local government, and more.
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Community engagement research and news for local government leaders
Next Webinar: Today's Top Ten Community Needs
What priorities are most important for your city? After decades of survey research, Polco data scientists have identified the top ten things that residents need and want most in their communities. Find out what they are in our upcoming webinar.
For too long, community data have lived in infinitely siloed sources. This means local governments have lacked practical access to Big Data for informed decisions. That’s why Polco’s community engagement platform now contains Performance Dashboards. These comprehensive datasets give community leaders a deeper understanding of their jurisdiction’s performance across six domains of livability. Let Polco provide the relevant data, so you can focus on making better-informed decisions.
Latest Articles and Research
Learn more about community engagement insights and trends leaders should know.
Gardena City leaders surveyed residents to learn what homeless services they think are most important. Officials Included the results in an official plan.
The new Civil Review Podcast brings you insights into engagement research and fascinating local gov topics you won’t find anywhere else. Learn interesting trends and data points from the National Research Center at Polco database of community feedback. Listen along on dives into topics discussed in The Civil Review newsletter, hear expert interviews, and explore all things local government in this fun and informative new podcast.
Letter From the Editor
After the midterms, I kept hearing discussions about why people bother paying attention to polls since they’ve been consistently inaccurate. I questioned the same thing. I'm fairly new to the survey world. I didn’t know how election polling worked. I talked to our survey science expert and thought-leader Erin Caldwell about the topic, and she taught me there are actually a lot of restrictions in election polling that make political predictions hard to pin down. The challenges she told me about would have never crossed my mind.
Our conversation got me thinking about how we are often unaware of the complexities of other people's jobs. The survey industry, in particular, is scientific with a lot of nitty-gritty details involved. A deep comprehension of survey science is why Polco is so beneficial to local governments; we have experts like Erin with decades of experience. That knowledge allows us to leverage tried-and-true best practices in survey methodology, while also leading the nation in civic analytics innovations. That expertise is an invaluable asset to decision-makers who rely on accurate data to improve their communities.
Jessie O'Brien | Polco Copywriter and The Civil Review Editor