HomeMy WebLinkAboutDeschutes County 2040 Engagement Audit 2
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Community Engagement Audit #2
TO: Deschutes 2040 Project Management Team
FROM: Ryan Mottau, Emma-Quin Smith, Andrew Parish, and Matt Hastie, MIG
CC:
DATE: May 16, 2023
INTRODUCTION
To help meet the community engagement goals of this project, an iterative process for setting,
reviewing, and resetting the path for community engagement has been built into this planning
effort. This memo, the second in the series, lays out the goals of the engagement process, the tools
we have used to engage the public, and a status update to inform any redirection necessary at this
stage of the project. The “Observations and Recommendations” section at the end of this memo
includes suggestions any additional engagement conducted as part of this effort and future County
projects.
ENGAGEMENT GOALS
The following goals were established in the Community Engagement Plan in June 2022 at the start of
this project:
1. The Deschutes County Comprehensive Plan Update project will reach across the county and
engage a broad spectrum of community members, including those who have not been a part of
past comprehensive plan projects. This will include multiple, targeted methods to hear the
perspectives of:
o All parts of Deschutes County (geographic coverage)
o Residents that the Community Development Department doesn’t typically hear from
(demographic diversity, less-vocal communities)
o Younger residents who will live with the direction of this plan (age under 25)
o Residents and stakeholders who are disproportionately impacted by planning decisions
(people of color, low-income residents, veterans, linguistically isolated communities)
o Recent and long-time residents (length of residency)
2. Individual activities will be designed to not only collect input from large numbers of participants,
but also allow for disaggregation of results to explore differences in opinion.
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3. We aim to hear directly from the individuals of Deschutes County; we will also reach out to
community organizations and advocates representing the perspectives described above.
4. We will facilitate meetings to maximize the diversity of voices heard and avoid having the
conversation dominated by individual perspectives.
5. At key points in the process, we will pause to reflect on the results to-date as well as
engagement with social and web content. We will conduct a detailed Engagement Audit during
the project to evaluate how well the County’s goals are being met and make changes to tools
and outreach methods as needed.
6. We will continue the commitment of Deschutes County to remove barriers to participating in
community discussions. This will include access to the physical, technological, cultural, and
language spaces that are a part of the process.
7. We will make it clear to community members how feedback will be used and the limitations at
this level of planning and jurisdiction.
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TOOLS AND METRICS
This section reviews the specific successes and shortcomings of individual tools based on metrics set at the beginning of the project.
Tool Target Status
Evaluation
Notes /
Remaining Effort Meeting Target
Not Yet Meeting
- No Trend
Project
Webpage
Increasing number of unique
visitors Usersi: 779 1,475 Continue to promote and
monitor activity on website
Email and Social
Media
Growth in contact list
Increasing Clicks on Email
Increasing Social Engagement
Email Listii:
83 390 466
Opened Emailiii:
54 198 306
Impressionsiv:
9,699 28,878
Increasing trend across all
metrics. Continue to provide
engaging content via email and
social media
Community
Open Houses
and Workshops
100+ attendees for each round
1 news story per event
Attendees: 175 121
News stories: 8 5 Slightly declining attendance
and media interest
Online Open
Houses 500 Responses to each survey Round 1 OHv: 205
Round 2 OHvi: 156
In Round 2, a new platform,
ConsiderIt, was used to allow
richer, interactive engagement.
A total of 686 unique visitors
were recorded.
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Tool Target Status
Evaluation
Notes /
Remaining Effort Meeting Target
Not Yet Meeting
- No Trend
Planning
Commission
Meetings
8 planned meetings 6 completed - Conduct remaining
meetings
- County staff have also
provided updates
Informational
Materials Develop materials FAQ (updated)
Project Summary Create other materials as
needed
“Meeting in a
Box”
More than 75 stakeholder groups
At least one group for each target
perspective.vii
Groups/Meetings: 55
Attendees: 254
Target Perspectives: 7/7
Additional Round 2 meetings
were compiled with the Open
House stats above. Staff is
continuing to meet with groups
throughout the duration of the
project.
County Staff
Training Conduct 2 sessions. Complete 7/28/22 none
Board of County
Commissioner
Updates
2-3 planned work sessions.
Additional briefings by staff. 1 consultant briefing Support future briefings as
directed by staff
Technical
Advisor
Coordination
Flexible use of technical experts.
Technical advisor
involvement in policy
updates
Continue to utilize technical
advisors during public policy
review and revision phase
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Tool Target Status
Evaluation
Notes /
Remaining Effort Meeting Target
Not Yet Meeting
- No Trend
Total
Participation
Proportionate Geographic
Representation by ZIP Code.
Online OH: within 10% in
each ZIP code area
Open House Round 2 and
Consider.it forum: within
10% in each ZIP code area
Engagement
Audits At least three check in points Audit 1: January 2023
Audit 2: May 2023 One remaining check-in
including an update to this
audit
For details about each tool, please see the Community Engagement Plan.
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OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The following list represents the start of a discussion about results and specific actions the project
team could take to improve performance connected to community engagement goals for the
project, as well as other County efforts:
• In general, the project should continue as planned. The reach of the second round of
engagement effort improved on the initial engagement. Specific successes include:
o Outreach to Brothers area improved representation of lower income and
geographically remote locations
o Topical posts (sending respondents to unique links related to that topic) were most
successful in the topic of growth. The Instagram post focused on population growth
had nearly twice the number of impressions of any other post, and the specific link
had 347 clicks.
o Posts on Instagram generated the most impressions and seem to have driven the
most clicks to the Consider.it forum.
o Scannable demographic forms created a quick way to summarize this data.
• Anecdotally, the Consider.it forum was well received by participants, who appreciated the
intuitive platform and the ability to provide nuance and detail about positions. The County
should consider continued use of the platform for other efforts.
• Pop-up events and meeting-in-a-box meetings continue to be a successful in-person tool to
reach new community members and raising awareness of the project. Many participants
expressed appreciation for County staffs presence at new and less formal locations
throughout the County.
i Google Analytics: Users (total from October 1 to current date)
ii Constant Contact: Count of emails
iii Constant Contact: Opens
iv Post Analytics from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Nextdoor: Total Impressions
v Alchemer (MIG Account): Total Respondents
vi ConsiderIt Policy Forum: Registered Users
vii Veterans, youth, people of color, low-income residents, linguistically isolated communities