CitizenLab

Open your project workspace, set your objective, and invite your community in. Start by choosing how people will contribute—an idea board, a survey, a participatory budget, or a mixed approach. Draw your service area on the map to target only the streets, blocks, or districts that matter for this plan. Set phases with clear timelines (exploration, prioritization, decision), and tailor the look and feel so it matches your agency’s brand. Enable multiple languages so participants see the interface and content in their preferred language from the first click. If your organization uses Single Sign-On, connect it so staff and residents can log in quickly and securely.

When you launch, share the project link by email, social posts, flyers with QR codes, or your website. Participants create an account or use SSO, choose their language, and land on a simple home where they can follow topics, contribute, and track their impact. On the map, they can drop a pin to suggest a new bike rack, upload a photo of a sidewalk gap, or annotate a park design. Others can upvote, comment, or add alternatives. The self-serve profile lets people edit details, manage notifications, and export their own contribution history. Moderation queues, keyword alerts, and community guidelines keep discussions constructive while preserving visibility into differing viewpoints.

As input arrives, move to analysis without leaving the platform. The dashboard surfaces what’s trending, where activity clusters, and who is participating. Use filters to slice contributions by neighborhood, tag, project phase, or demographic segments (where applicable). Auto-tag themes or add your own labels to group ideas, then merge duplicates and prioritize with votes or custom scoring. Generate snapshot reports to brief leadership or download raw data for deeper analysis. Share status updates—under review, planned, completed—so contributors see progress. For budget cycles, attach cost estimates to proposals, simulate scenarios, and publish the winning package with a clear audit trail of how choices were made.

Coordinate the work across teams with roles and permissions. Assign moderators to triage comments, project managers to publish updates, and admins to configure settings and integrations. Build a simple workflow: intake, review, internal comment, approval, publish. Create reusable templates for future consultations so you can launch in minutes, not days. With SSO and integrations, staff move between tools without extra passwords, while secure access ensures each colleague only sees what they need. When it’s time to close the loop, send targeted summaries to participants in their chosen language, embed result maps on your site, and archive the project so lessons and templates are ready for the next initiative.