Greensboro Plan2Play Parks and Recreation Master Plan 2019

GREENSBORO PLAN2PLAY MASTER PLAN - 15

Community Engagement Process Plan2Play is the result of a robust community engagement process. Beginning in January of 2018 engagement spanned a seven-month period, concluding in July with the unveiling of the top nine Master Plan concepts at Greensboro’s well- attended Parks and Rec Fest. Overall the team touched approximately 7,000 individuals in-person, on-line, and through hard-copy mailers. The result of a partnership between the Department's staff and the consultant team, a variety of engagement activities were designed to elicit feedback from a wide variety of individuals ranging from frequent park users to residents with little knowledge or experience of park and recreation offerings. This was achieved by a multi-pronged strategy that crossed communication platforms, scales, neighborhoods, and communities. Engagement activities were designed to meet resident both in

their space and time, as well as, at more structured plan specific public forums. IN PERSON: In person engagement consisted of three city-wide community conversations, 17 community focused pop-up events, six rotating participation poll boards in selected libraries and recreation centers, and 11 focus groups. At all venues residents and City staff were asked to participate using a toolkit of interactive games and comment boards that allowed for both open-ended and targeted feedback. Pop-up events were particularly successful tools for engaging with the public. These activities were staged at community or city-wide events, such as LeBauer Park Spartan Cinema night or Groovin in the Gardens at Gateway Gardens. This format, which capitalized on energy and participation of existing events, allowed the team to broaden in-person interaction well beyond the reach of the typical public meeting. ON-LINE: On-line engagement took the form of short monthly surveys, a project website featuring various presentations at key points in the process, and social media

posts and comment threads. Each of the four months presented a different theme as a tool to gather public input. These monthly themes included Facilities, Programs, Amenities, and Vision. MAIL: A statistically valid paper survey was mailed to 2,500 residents across the City of Greensboro. This tool provided an important data set that represented a user group with similar demographic characteristics to the city as a whole and offered a balanced citizen perspective from all five Council Districts. A total of 300 surveys were returned. This amount of returned surveys ensure, with a 95%

confidence level, that the results accurately reflected Greensboro’s diverse demographics.