How the City of Palm Desert Created an Online Engagement Hub for its Residents

Residents are expecting more transparency and communication from their local leaders than ever before. In the past, city staff used occasional town hall meetings, tabling at a local park, or social media to reach stakeholders. But in-person engagement methods massively limit the number of people that can participate in their communities, and social media can be unreliable.  When the City of Palm Desert, CA ran into these issues, they turned to an online community engagement platform. 

Within the first year of implementing their engagement platform, Engage Palm Desert, city staff received community feedback from hundreds more residents on various projects. They were able to encourage participation by creating a central hub for information and feedback collection while offering a mix of fun and more serious projects for visitors to explore.  

In this session, you will hear directly from community engagement practitioners at the City of Palm Desert and learn how they found success in online community engagement, which strategies they’ve used, and what they envision for the future.