About Engage Cincy Community
Working to Put the ‘Unity’ Back in Community and the ‘Serve’ Back in Service
Successful local governments focus on community needs and how to balance those needs with government policy and the resources available. And no government can have a truly meaningful impact without the involvement of its residents.
Those two factors resulted in the City of Cincinnati's development of Engage Cincy, a unique resident-led initiative to promote more robust interaction with the people who live, work and play here.
It all started back in 2009 when the City of Cincinnati began the process of developing a new comprehensive community engagement plan. Through hundreds of community members and thousands of conversations, Plan Cincinnati was completed in 2012. Among Plan Cincinnati's listed goals was to create a welcoming civic atmosphere and build stronger communities by increasing civic engagement. To accomplish these goals, some 30 active resident volunteers, representing 29 neighborhood and civic organizations, decided to come together to make Cincinnati extraordinary and quickly move the city forward toward comprehensive community engagement. Together they produced “Strength in Unity - A Proposal to Create a Flourishing Citizen Engagement Culture in Cincinnati.”
This dedicated grassroots group then took this proposal to City Council along with several recommendations about how to make robust community engagement a reality in Cincinnati.
The initiative received formal support in September 2014 with the approval of community engagement mission and vision statements (Council Motion 201401166). Council later backed this motion by adopting community engagement policies and principles (Administrative Regulation 69) to guide the Administration in the practical application of community engagement in the day-to-day business of the City.
The purpose is to strengthen the culture of citizen engagement in Cincinnati by providing opportunities for all to participate in meaningful and proactive ways in the City’s decision-making and problem-solving processes.
The Engage Cincy group reports to the City Manager, and serves as a liaison between the broader community and the City Manager and City departments on citywide issues related to effective community engagement.