Participation Compass

Would the involvement and input of citizens, service users or key stakeholders help you to understand their needs better, improve outcomes or increase impact? This is a complex field and the Participation Compass app helps you make sense of it all.

Organisations in the public sector like Central Government, Local Authorities, Health and police services, housing associations, charities and private companies are all trying to involve people in their decisions and services. This has many names: consultation, engagement, involvement, stakeholder participation, deliberation, dialogue, participatory democracy.

The app helps you:
- Browse and choose between dozens of engagement methods covering face-to-face and digital approaches
- Find a method tailored to your situation and your participants’ needs
- Explore case studies of participation in action from around the world
- Browse resource and practical guidance of how to do this work on the ground
- Keep up to date with relevant RSS feeds
- Browse expert organisations in facilitation, edemocracy, open government, involvement, digital democracy and related fields.

In keeping with the ethos of the site, users are invited to contribute their own experiences and knowledge to any one of the aforementioned sections. In doing so, you can also be considered for our Expert directory.

The site (participationcompass.org) and App are constantly updated. Engagement may be a vast and complex field, but now it can fit into your pocket.

The app has been developed by UK participation specialists Involve, and the German Foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung.