What’s New: Dashboards for data-driven storytelling and informed engagement

About six months ago, after five years in online civic engagement, we set out to answer a question many local governments were asking in the age of open data, transparency, and participatory planning:

What would informed engagement look like?

Most of us have an intuitive understanding that the demographic and socioeconomic profiles of places shape the way people engage, the feedback they give, and the decisions that benefit them most — but most of us don’t have an easy way to see, analyze, or interact with the data.

That’s why today, we’re pleased to announce the first in a series of releases aimed at improving the end-to-end process of civic engagement by making data easily accessible, sharable, and meaningful.

Introducing Dashboards

Take any project, anywhere and create an interactive dashboard to visualize data.

Dashboards use data to tell the story of a place and its people — and you can build one in minutes. Instantly access hundreds of public and private data sets — from the American Community Survey to real-time 311 activity — and feature only the most relevant for your project or proposal. Add local boundaries, like neighborhoods and council districts — anything that’s geo-referenced. Provide key take-aways, things to think about, or next steps.

Share with your team, elected officials, or the public to unlock actionable insights.

Add it to regular reports to the city council, make it your next Facebook status, or post it to your local feed in mySidewalk. As stakeholders explore their community in the context of its demographic and socioeconomic attributes, their understanding will expand — and their ideas will, too.

Data tells stories. Dashboards make them engaging. Does your project need a dashboard? Click here to connect with our team, or, email hello@mysidewalk.com.