Neighborland: how we engage and empower communities

Neighborland is a public engagement platform that empowers residents to shape the development of their neighborhoods. Founded in 2010 by Dan Parham, Tee Parham, and Candy Chang, Neighborland helps improve the way civic organizations collaborate with their communities. I joined Neighborland in 2012, after a seed investment round that supported product development and hiring an initial cross-functional team.

In this blog post, we will explore how Neighborland uses a creative engagement model to facilitate meaningful conversations and actions among neighbors, government agencies, developers, and civic organizations.

What is public engagement?

Public engagement is the process of involving the public in the planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of local projects, policies, or services that affect them or that they have an interest in. Public engagement can take various forms, such as consultation, participation, collaboration, co-creation, or empowerment.

Public engagement can benefit both the public and the organizations that engage them. For residents, public engagement can increase their awareness, knowledge, and influence on the issues that matter to them. For the organizations, public engagement can improve their understanding, trust, and support from the public, as well as their decision-making, innovation, and impact.

Better public engagement for better neighborhoods

The traditional way of doing public engagement is broken. It is slow, costly, exclusive, and ineffective. It has relied on outdated methods and tools, such as town hall meetings, limited access surveys, and expensive workshops with consultants. It can fail to engage and empower the people who live and work in the neighborhoods. Without more accessible ways to contribute, it can fail to create and implement solutions that meet the needs and aspirations of communities.

We created Neighborland to help fix public engagement. We use new methods and tools, via an open digital platform, to encourage people who live and work in the neighborhoods to actively share their ideas, co-design solutions, and co-deliver outcomes.

The Neighborland engagement model

Neighborland’s engagement model is based on a simple but powerful question: “What do you want in your neighborhood?” This question invites people to share their ideas, aspirations, and needs for their local communities. Neighborland then provides tools and resources to help turn those ideas into reality.

Neighborland blends physical installations with a digital platform to create a participatory experience for communities. Let’s dive into how this combination works:

Physical Installations

• Human-Centered Design: Neighborland leverages a simple, eye-catching format to engage people in public spaces. We install large, mobile whiteboard walls in cities, inviting passersby to share their ideas for neighborhood improvement. These installations spark creativity and encourage participation.

• Community Support: Neighborland partners with existing events and festivals to engage with people face-to-face. These interactions foster a sense of community involvement with the platform.
• Democratizing the Creative: Neighborland empowers residents to take action. One way do this by providing design toolkits. These toolkits allow residents to create their own physical installations, fostering a sense of ownership and creativity within the community.

• Idea Collection: Input gathered through the physical installations is transferred to the digital platform where ideas are tagged and searchable by location and topics.

Digital Platform

• Discovery: Neighborland.com enables people to discover what their neighbors want to see in their city or specific neighborhood. Users can post their ideas on a map, vote and comment on other ideas, and join groups of interest. Neighborland also displays relevant news and information from neighbors, businesses, and public agencies in real time. Ideas are shared openly on a publicly accessible website.

• Connection: Users can promote and find events, workshops, and surveys related to their communities. Neighbors can follow each other or follow discussions and updates on local ideas.
• Storytelling: Neighborland highlights community partnerships and progress on ideas shared across the platform to communicate and connect with users. Neighborland also encouraged users to share their own stories and experiences on the platform and social media.

How can others learn from Neighborland’s public engagement model?

Organizations, and really brands of all kinds, can learn from Neighborland’s public engagement model to engage their target audiences in more creative, effective, and impactful ways. Here are some of the lessons and tips that can apply to a wide range of engagement strategies:

• Start with a simple question. Start your engagement process by inviting people to share their ideas, needs, and feedback. We start with a simple question: “What do you want in your neighborhood?” This question invites people to share their aspirations and needs for their local communities. It also sparks curiosity and conversation among neighbors, businesses, and public agencies.
• Encourage creativity. We’ve seen that creativity is contagious. Creativity inspires and influences others. Creativity attracts and connects people. Creativity generates and spreads ideas. Creativity creates and fosters a culture of innovation and collaboration.
• Provide less features, not more. We have focused on building only the essential functionality of our platform. We eliminated anything that was unnecessary, distracting, or complicated. We strive to make Neighborland simple, clear, and easy to use. That way, people can get involved quickly, without instructions needed.
• Positive reinforcement. Neighborland provides user profiles where participants can showcase their ideas, contributions, and engagement history. When a community idea becomes a reality (e.g., a park renovation, a mural installation), participants receive a “Made It Happen” badge. These badges celebrate tangible impact and recognize contributors who played a role in bringing the idea to life. Badges serve as social proof, encourage sustained participation, and motivate others to actively participate.
• Network effect. Users can follow other participants to stay updated on their ideas and activities. The feed displays a curated stream of content from followed users, making it easy to discover relevant ideas and discussions. Followers create a network effect, encouraging collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas.

Neighborland’s approach shows us that audience engagement doesn’t have to be about just data collection or merely transactional — instead, with creativity, empathy, and a genuine desire to listen, we can transform audience engagement into a dynamic, human-centered process; it’s about fostering shared ownership, sparking ideas, and inviting collaboration.

In 2019, Neighborland was acquired by Nextdoor, the leading social network for neighborhoods. Over 3 million people participated on Neighborland, and its partners’ projects have yielded over $700 billion in social and economic impact, learn more here.

Rob Chappell was a member of Neighborland’s founding team from 2012–2014. During that time, Neighborland pitched and produced over 50 programs with city agencies, community organizations, and corporate social responsibility divisions across the US.