Community engagement and co-design
Decide when, if, and how to engage more effectively and efficiently. Gather relevant insight. Build trust. Use AI and tech where they help.
For everyone working on public initiatives: staff and leaders in government, nonprofits, funders, and companies.
Customized to your actual initiative and connected to your current workflows, such as your procurement, scope of work development, capacity building, or strategic planning.
Staff and leaders in government, nonprofits, funders, and companies. Mixed teams are welcome.
Half day or one day (one module). One or two days (the full course). Six-month cohort with monthly working sessions.
Required leadership hours, project management continuing education, and AICP maintenance where your agency allows it.
Four modules
Take the course, or just the one you need. Every module works on your initiative, with your documents and deadlines.
Module 1Who, why, and on what termsThe challenge: Engagement reaches the same few people and misses the rest.
What we cover: Clarify why you are engaging and which decisions are still open. Map who is affected and who is missing. Set the time, place, language, and pay that let people with the most at stake join.
Module 2The right method, size, and timingThe challenge: You have a mandate, a short timeline, a small budget, and no clear way to choose a method.
What we cover: Clarify what you need: to include people, learn from them, build alignment, or act on the community’s vision. Pick the method that fits your goal and capacity. Leave with a tactical engagement strategy that delivers.
Module 3From input to design, and backThe challenge: People share ideas, the ideas sit in a report, and nobody sees what changed.
What we cover: Turn what you heard into program guidelines, eligibility, and design choices. Show leadership what the community said. Report back on what changed, what did not, and why.
Module 4AI and online tools for engagementThe challenge: Vendors are pitching tools, staff already use AI, and nobody can say what helps.
What we cover: How to decide if a tool fits your team, your community, and your organization’s rules. How much staff time it really takes. How to use online tools together with in-person meetings.
In the room
Working sessions, on real initiatives, with the people responsible for them.
You leave with: A tactical engagement strategy connected to how your organization and community operate, community partners written into the RFP and scope of work so procurement can approve it, and a clear call on how AI and technology can support your engagement.
How it runs
Bring a real initiative and the people responsible for it. My aim is a team that can do this on its own afterward.
Half day or one day
One module. One working session. You leave with something you can use the next morning.
One or two days
The full course, on one real initiative, with the team responsible for it.
Six-month cohort
Two days to start, then monthly working sessions. Partners and other departments can join.
Over 20 years in government, nonprofits, academia, and start-ups. Founder, The Triangle. Program Director, Sustainable Environmental Design, UC Berkeley. I know the privacy, procurement, legal, and civil service rules that decide what is possible, and I design the training to work inside them.
Share this course with your team
A one-page summary of the modules and formats. Send it to your director or a partner organization.
Download the one-pager (PDF)Bring this course to your team
Tell me about the initiative and the people responsible for it. We’ll pick the format and the modules together.
Talk to Nader