Dulles Community Outreach Program

About the Program

Category: Planning (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

The purpose of the project, directed by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, is to conduct a dialogue with citizens of the Dulles Community to identify neighborhood and community-wide priorities and to develop recommended strategies to aid in future planning and programmatic activities. The project includes both a comprehensive and inclusive process utilizing multiple platforms and media to reach and hear from the widest range of voices. Combining traditional engagement strategies (surveys, community meetings, focus groups) with innovative new technologies (social media, web based forum Mind Mixer, crowdsourced mapping), the project aims to engage people where they are, be that in a community center or in front of their laptop or handheld device. This multifaceted approach maintains the dialogue throughout the project, even on weekends, rather than limiting it to meetings or questionnaires. Perhaps the most exciting outreach strategy is crowdsourced mapping through the County’s ArcGIS Online platform. An important step in the planning process is identifying a community’s key characteristics. Using an interactive map on the project’s website, stakeholders highlight areas that they would like to celebrate and accentuate (assets) and areas that they believe should be remedied (needs) using points, photos, and short descriptions, thus allowing stakeholders to communicate spatially and directly to the project team at any time. The final map will be used as an input to the community work sessions and the larger Dulles Community Outreach Project.