Gathering feedback in a diverse community
The City of Lynn’s planning department sought to create the city’s first ever comprehensive plan in 2021. The idea behind the plan is to create a document that will serve as the 20 year vision for the city and guide future development & investments in infrastructure. Lynn’s planning department determined that this vision should be created in collaboration with the community. They wanted community voices to not only be heard but to also inform the comprehensive plan. In partnership with co:census, the City of Lynn’s planning department launched a SMS survey in 8 languages, leveraged our analytics dashboard to understand the voices of over 800 community members, and received further data analysis support through our Behavioral Insights Reporting & Impact Report.
Starting from scratch
As Lynn’s first ever comprehensive plan, the planning department had no foundation to work off of. The team understood that a “build it & they’ll come” approach to this plan wasn’t going to cut it and would result in a vision that wasn’t representative of Lynn’s extremely diverse community. As a result, the planning department decided that the first step of this journey was listening and launched an omnichannel survey campaign to hear from community members.
Developing a thoughtful and intentional engagement strategy
Any agency that wants to conduct community engagement needs a thoroughly planned & intentional engagement strategy. Given Lynn’s diverse community, the planning department was aware of the importance of creating intentional engagement and created a robust promotional plan to advertise their survey. The promotional plan outlined strategic partners (such as cultural centers, delis, & pharmacies) to drop in-language marketing collateral. Additionally, there was a coordinated digital & mailing campaign through communication channels that community members were familiar with & had previously opted in to.
In kicking off their partnership with co:census, the City of Lynn launched a multilingual SMS survey with co:census that gathered feedback 48 community members.
Transforming raw data into trends & sentiments
The team at Lynn used their co:census workspace to import 850 public comments from online surveys, paper surveys, and their live SMS survey. Using the co:census Insights page, powered by AI models we develop internally, the Planning team gained insights on resident sentiments, pain points, and solutions. Our top trends feature uses natural language processing which supported the planning department in understanding what people loved about the city and what people wished was different.
In addition to these insights, the City of Lynn’s Planning team tapped our Research Designer, who completed a Community Solutions Report, providing a targeted and succinct analysis of public comments (view sample Community Solutions Report).
A plan is finalized!
With full use of the range of co:census’ features & services, the City of Lynn’s Planning team was able to:
Utilize our translation service to launch a survey in more than 6 languages, saving the team time & money,
Launch a SMS survey which engaged a more diverse community, ensuring their team prioritize inclusive engagement,
Use the co:census workspace to analyze public comments from multiple sources (online, paper, and SMS surveys) in one space, which supported their efficient analysis, and
Tap into our Research Designer’s expertise in order to receive a synthesized report of community feedback.
So what was the outcome?
The City of Lynn’s first-ever comprehensive plan has been voted in by City Council. This plan was developed in collaboration, in true co-design fashion, with the residents of Lynn. Review their twenty-year plan here.
