Local Authority & Community
Civic engagement - involving local communities in decision-making and planning is of the utmost importance for local authorities, especially under the new coalition government (e.g. see the Conservative's open-sourced planning proposals). MES can help to get local people involved in related consultation exercises and even work to improve your council's electoral turnout through increasing your community's awareness of the issues that affect them. We can develop and run local events, PR activities, briefing sessions for local residents and street campaigns. We can also chair meetings for local groups and even design and produce eye-catching promotional material for use in community engagement campaigns.
Youth Parliaments - for local authorities, tackling the issue of unengaged youth and engaging them in the community and the democratic process is essential. Many authorities have set up Youth Parliaments and Forums to engage with their younger residents effectively. We can help you here - from developing and running training workshops, to publicising & promoting events through to running the actual elections either online, on site, by post or SMS & phone.
Click here to read about how we helped Lambeth Council to recruit its Youth Mayor.
Business Improvement Districts - business improvement districts are public-private partnerships which can provide a vehicle for growth within your area.
MES can assist your BID campaign through:
- Running an initial feasibility study - i.e. consulting local businesses to identify geographical areas where there is support for the idea of a BID, drafting BID boundary options, prioritising BID proposals for improvement based on feedback, budget planning, etc.
- Assisting with campaign planning and implementation.
- Providing a database for you to store information about the businesses within the proposed area, e.g. contact details, rateable value, main concerns about the area.
- Branding, design and production of promotional materials.
Click here to find out how we helped Worthing Town Centre Initiative with its ballot.
Local Community & Housing Elections - of course our parent company Electoral Reform Services can support you fully with your elections and consultations. If you are battling with issues like how best to tackle a falling turnout, develop longer term communication and campaign strategies, and review internal rules, procedures and processes, then we can also help you.
We can assist you in strengthening your internal democracy, create a communication bond between your organisation and your members, increase awareness amongst your residents and potential voters, increase the number of voters, improve candidate quality and increase election turnout.
| Click here to read a case study of the candidate and voter engagement strategies we used for North Fulham New Deal for Communities, and click the icon to the right to find out how our membership profiling services could help your organisation. |  |
Click here to read our democracy healthcheck
