Inclusive Participation
Ensure all stakeholders have a voice in shaping the City’s future.
Vision
Quick Poll
What should be the City’s top priority for community engagement in the next 6 months?
What It Is
A city-wide public engagement platform powered by Social Pinpoint (SPP), centralizing surveys, maps, idea boards, and project pages. Social Pinpoint is a digital engagement platform that enables interactive, transparent, and inclusive participation. Charlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan emphasizes the same values of broad participation, accessibility, and trust-building, making Social Pinpoint a natural fit for the City’s ongoing engagement strategy.
What is Social Pinpoint?
Why It Matters!
Helps ensure broad participation, clear communication, and shared solutions for Charlottesville's future. Social Pinpoint is a digital engagement platform that enables interactive, transparent, and inclusive participation. Charlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan emphasizes the same values of broad participation, accessibility, and trust-building making Social Pinpoint a natural fit for the city’s ongoing engagement strategy.
Comprehensive Plan Goals
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Transparency
Provide clear, accessible information about projects and decisions.
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Trust-Building
Strengthen relationships between residents and government through open dialogue.
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Accessibility
Offer Multiple avenues for engagement (digital, in-person, written, etc.) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.2 Compliance
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Accountability
Show how public input informs decisions. Reporting and Analysis available for the platform and projects.
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Efficiency
Streamline processes to reduce duplication of effort and staff burden.
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Innovation
Use creative tools to make participation engaging and meaningful.
Potential Benefits
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Timeline item 1 - active
Broader Reach
Residents can participate anytime, anywhere, increasing inclusivity.
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Timeline item 2 - incomplete
Diverse Input Methods
Interactive maps, surveys, storytelling, and Q&A capture richer feedback.
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Timeline item 3 - incomplete
Transparency & Trust
Public dashboards make feedback visible, reinforcing accountability.
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Timeline item 4 - incomplete
Creative Communication
Tools like timelines and storytelling make engagement more engaging
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Timeline item 5 - incomplete
Scalable Engagement
Supports both small neighborhood projects and city-wide initiatives
Reduction in Capacity Needed
- Automated data collection & reporting → less manual processing of feedback.
- Centralized platform → eliminates fragmented communication channels.
- Self-service participation → residents engage independently, reducing facilitation needs.
- Reusable templates & content tools → cut down preparation time for new projects.
Automatic Updates for Community Members
Options for keeping community members updated on projects include the Follow Page and Contact Form tools.
Follow Page
When community stakeholders follow a project page, they will receive emails when a project is updated, a new event is added, and etc. For this feature, an email list serve does not need to be maintained.
The image below shows the Follow button for this project page.
Contact Form
Creating a contact form for a project can also create an email list serve. Social Pinpoint manages these lists based on user opt-ins, follows, and profile preferences.
A contact form for this page is provided on the right sidebar. An example of a contact submission is shown below.
