Outreach with Public

Not all perspectives from children and youth will be captured by working with your partners. To fill these gaps and ensure equity and inclusion is centered in your map design, we recommend finding ways to conduct outreach with the broader public at events where different youth and families might be gathered. Below, we have outlined the suggested steps for outreach, analyzing, and drafting when working with the public. 

We recommend that you: 

1) Look for citywide events that are happening (festivals, fairs, farmers markets, back to school nights, city department hosted events) 

2) Reach out to your local children's museums and other family venues to see if they want to collaborate 

3) Ask nonprofit organizations that have yet to participate

4) Find spaces like parks and libraries where you can host an informational table 

The idea of conducting outreach with the public is to expand your reach and get new perspectives to inform your second draft. Think in terms of diversity of opinions and lived experience so that you feel good about the extent to which you reached all community groups in this process. Two GUB ways that we reached out to the public included tabling at the Boulder Farmer's Market and joining a bilingual family event at the Museum of Boulder. 

The general process for working with the public is similar to that of the partner feedback sessions, except when you work with the public sector, you SIMPLIFY the feedback process. 

Step 1 - Schedule Outreach with Public 

Depending on how much time you have to conduct outreach, analyze feedback, and create map drafts, you can determine how many public outreach sessions you want to have and how far apart you would like to schedule them. We recommend conducting at least one so that you can reach youth and families who did not participate in Lesson 1 with your partners. 

Step 2 - Conduct Outreach with Public 

Here is the general shape of a possible Public Feedback Session:

1. 1. Display maps on tables in the space.
   2. Have sticky notes and pencils out for kids (and adults) to write their comments on.
   3. As children and families come up to your table, describe the map project in very simple terms to them.  Explain that this is the first draft and that you are looking to make the map better.
   4. Ask: What elements of the map do they like and don’t like? What is missing or could be improved? What would they like to see on the 2nd draft?
   5. You might consider having a clipboard available for folks to sign up for your newsletter or to stay involved with the map project.
   6. Tell children and parents where to find the maps once they are published.

Step 3 - Analyze Feedback from Public Feedback Sessions

• After collecting the sticky notes, you can enter these feedback into the surveys that you used with Partners, or choose to collect that data in another way or in a new spreadsheet. 
• The most important aspect of analyzing data is considering how you can improve on the map to meet the needs of children and youth. 

Step 4 - Map Draft 

• Based on what children and youth say and your design goals for the map, make changes. We suggest creating a tracking document that your designer manages that holds each desired change and then noting when that change has been made.

Step 5 - Iterate

• Continue to collect community and public feedback until you feel that you have gotten a diverse representation of your community. 

The above photos at the Museum of Boulder capture GUB's public outreach with University Hill Elementary School's Bilingual Showcase. Young people and their families provide feedback for map draft 1.