Public Engagement in California: New research on the state of our democracy
Two new must-see reports have been released by Public Agenda in partnership with the Institute for Local Government and the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University (three AWESOME organizational members of NCDD, I might add!). The study was funded by Irvine Foundation.
The reports summarize the perspectives of 1,400 public officials and leaders of civic organizations on the state of public participation in local government decision making in California. The two gorgeous reports (I received my copies over the weekend!) are titled “Testing the Waters: California’s Local Officials Experiment with New Ways to Engage the Public” and “Beyond Business as Usual: Leaders of California’s Civic Organization Seek New Ways to Engage the Public in Local Governance.”
See http://publicagenda.org/pages/public-engagement-in-california for more details and to download the reports, and be sure to share the infographic (below) for the study widely. Infographics are one of the most effective tools we have right now for sharing research and statistics with a broad audience via social media — and having this shared widely can only help our field!