This regular feature of ILG’s Public Engagement E-news offers new and useful information and resources about public engagement practices, innovations and ideas from sources in California and elsewhere.

2012 ICMA State of the Profession Survey

In case you missed it, you might be interested in taking a look at results of the 2012 ICMA State of the Profession Survey that looked at the nature and purposes of local government public participation efforts. Find an informative article from the March 2014 PM Magazine (by R. Vogel, E. Moulder and M. Huggins) with helpful endnotes here.

“Gamification in Community Engagement Part 1: Offline”

As public participation processes can sometimes be seen as tedious and one-dimensional in their design, some observers are looking to make such activities more rewarding and more fun for participants by using games – or gamification.  See a short piece by Andrew Colson, “Gamification in Community Engagement Part 1: Offline” here. On the same theme, there is also a new book out, Making Democracy Fun: How Game Design Can Empower Citizens and Transform Politics by Josh Learner. This is a 2014 book from MIT Press (ISBN: 9780262026871). This use of games and game-like activities may become an area of increasing interest by public engagement process designers and planners.

Engaging Youth

As resources for city and county youth commissions and advisory councils throughout California, the Institute for Local Government has prepared a number of briefing papers. Each paper has a dedicated focus area of youth learning, leadership and engagement, such as youth engagement in local planning and climate change activities. All Youth Commission Briefing Papers, including the most recent “Connecting the Next Generation with Local Agency Careers,” may be viewed and downloaded without cost at from ILG’s website.

Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning

The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning (CIRCLE) along with colleagues and partners have developed and tested various measures of youth and young adult civic engagement. These are available on the CIRCLE website.