Granicus Launches New COVID-19 Tools and Quick Start Solutions for State and Local Governments to Keep Citizens Informed and Services Available

Free digital tools broadly distribute national and regional government bulletins and empowers government’s frontline leaders to better inform the public and keep communities safe.

Denver, CO –  April 8, 2020 – In an urgent effort to create a trusted channel for accurate information and combat the dangerous spread of misinformation related to COVID-19, Granicus, the leading provider of cloud-based citizen engagement technologies and services for the public sector, announced a new set of easily embeddable web tools that aggregate, curate, and present factual COVID-19 content from our nation’s most-trusted government sources for widespread community access. These tools are free and available to any local, state, or federal government organization to use on their website — directly connecting people to accurate, timely, and relevant COVID-19 information that offers a trusted source of truth for communities to guide safe decisions and behavior.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, governments are continuously battling against the spread of misinformation and, in some cases, deliberate and malicious attempts to draw citizens and residents into fraudulent activities,” said Mark Hynes, CEO of Granicus. “During this critical time of national unity, Granicus is committed to doing what we can to help governments —  regardless of resource constraints — care for their communities and keep people safe. As the trusted communication provider for over 4,500 government entities, Granicus is in a unique position to aggregate and curate vital government-provided information related to the COVID-19 virus and utilize technology innovations to regionalize, package and deliver content with the highest relevance to residents in partnership with their governments.”

Created in direct response to the surging demand from citizens for accurate government-issued information related to COVID-19, the free COVID-19 tools are easily implemented by inserting a single line of code within any government website. Examples of free tools include:

• COVID-19 govNews SignUp: Register for COVID-19 alerts issued by trusted, local, regional and national government sources via an email subscription.
• COVID-19 govNews Search: Utilize a custom COVID-19 Search engine to search official government sources of COVID-19 related information including email bulletins, communications, and websites to eliminate sources of misinformation and quickly get to accurate, relevant search results.
• COVID-19 govNews Feed: Browse real-time streams of COVID-19 bulletins and updates from local or regional government information providers.

In addition to helping governments remain responsive to their citizens and deliver real-time, accurate COVID-19 information, Granicus is helping governments meet the realities of a remote government with technology solutions that empower leaders to conduct regular government business and rapidly transition key government services and transactions online. These services are being offered on a fast track procurement basis and free for a limited time for COVID-19 related uses.

Granicus Solutions Empowering Governments During COVID-19:

• Public Communications: Granicus is offering expedited implementation of govDelivery, a digital communications solution dedicated to the public sector  that includes email, social, and text messages with deliverability rates in excess of 99%. Leverage Granicus Subscriber Network of over 200 million opt-in subscribers to rapidly develop opt-in audiences interested in COVID-19 communications. Nearly 800 million coronavirus-related updates have been delivered to U.S. residents since the beginning of the pandemic crisis.
• Digital Service Delivery: Granicus is offering a quick deployment of govService so government agencies can rapidly digitize key government services as offices remain closed and residents practice social distancing. With govService, these agencies can more effectively manage significant increases in demand for services such as unemployment applications through online, digital intake and processing, as well as managing critical online service requests, permitting, license renewals, transactions, among others.
• Municipal Meeting Management: In response to many state executive orders, Granicus is offering immediate access to govMeetings eComment software, which allows municipalities to accept public comments electronically, before and during online meetings as meetings move from council rooms to those conducted virtually.
• Online Community Forum: Granicus has launched a free online community for government leaders called govCommunity, which provides a platform for sharing best practices and examples of effective COVID-19 responses and communications. The community currently has over 1,200 active government participants.

“Information is shifting daily on COVID-19, and we’ve worked side-by-side with government leaders to leverage every possible channel including email, text, social, and web to effectively communicate stay-at-home orders, share tactics for ‘flattening the curve,’ and even recruit medical personnel in hard-hit areas,” said Hynes. “At Granicus, our support does not stop there. We’ve helped our customers rapidly transition in-person services like unemployment applications and drivers license renewals to online, and run virtual civic meetings from home while empowering citizens to provide public comments to maintain open civic processes. We’re proud to have delivered these solutions in a matter of hours to support thousands of local governments in this critical work in a time of national need.”

About Granicus

Granicus connects governments with the people they serve by providing the first and only civic engagement platform for the public sector. Nearly 4,500 federal, state and local government agencies and more than 200 million citizen subscribers power an unmatched Subscriber Network that turns government missions into quantifiable results. With comprehensive cloud-based solutions for communications, government website design, meeting and agenda management software, records management, and digital services, Granicus empowers stronger relationships between government and citizens.

Media Contact:
Madeline O’Phelan
651.341.3878
madeline.ophelan@granicus.com