case-study – Ethelo

Staff Action Planning

case-study — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 22:52:29 +0000

Collaborative Staff Action Planning: How Ethelo generated optimized and cohesive organizational plans

The Pacific Region of the Department of Public Services and Procurement Canada faced challenges turning Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) results into actionable workplace wellness plans. To address this, they partnered with Ethelo, an online collaborative decision-making platform. Over 10 days, staff and management evaluated, discussed, and prioritized 31 potential action items. Ethelo’s algorithm analyzed billions of scenarios, identifying optimized, broadly supported plans. The process fostered high engagement, transparency, and buy-in, leading to effective, data-driven solutions. The success of this approach is now being shared at high-level government meetings, demonstrating its potential for wider public sector application.

7000+
viable scenarios

75%
average support

Annie Desgagnes

Regional Director, Pacific Region, Public Works Canada

The Government of Canada conducts a government-wide Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) every three years to gather feedback from public service employees about their workplace and job satisfaction. While the data collected is reliable and well-segmented, it often takes a long time to develop structured plans to address the issues identified. In 2014, the Pacific Region of the Department of Public Services and Procurement faced this challenge. They needed to create actionable plans to address persistent workplace wellness issues, such as absenteeism, identified in the PSES results. To tackle this, they turned to Ethelo, a platform designed to facilitate collaborative decision-making.

The Challenge

The 2014 PSES results for the Pacific Region highlighted several areas needing improvement, particularly in workplace wellness. The survey consisted of 106 questions, covering employee engagement, leadership, workforce, and workplace issues. The region had already conducted 19 in-person workshops to identify potential action items, resulting in a list of 31 possible actions. However, the challenge was to narrow down these options to a set of actionable plans that would have the greatest impact, be feasible to implement, and gain broad support from staff.

The Solution: Ethelo’s Collaborative Platform

Ethelo was brought in to facilitate a 10-day online collaboration between staff and management. The goal was to create pragmatic, widely supported action plans for four departments within the Pacific Region. Ethelo’s platform allowed staff to evaluate, discuss, and prioritize the 31 action items in a transparent and engaging manner.

Key Features of the Ethelo Platform:

Background Information: Each action item was accompanied by a detailed description, which could be expanded to include additional media, links, or facts. This ensured that participants had all the information they needed to make informed decisions.
Discussion Forum: Participants could share their thoughts, reply to comments, and “like” others’ contributions. This social-media-style dialogue allowed for a thorough and transparent discussion of each option.
Quantitative Evaluation: Participants rated each action item on a nine-point scale, providing measurable insight into the level of support or opposition for each option. Ethelo’s algorithm then analyzed these ratings to identify the most viable action plans.

The Process

In the first stage, management evaluated the 31 options according to 3 criteria; feasibility, impact, and cost. Then, management identified a minimum threshold for each criteria that an overall plant would have to meet.

Staff were then invited to participate in evaluating the options according to their preference. The consultation was designed to be anonymous to encourage open and honest participation. Staff were able to log in multiple times over the 10-day period to contribute to the discussion, learn from others, and adjust their views as needed. Ethelo aggregated the preferences hourly, publishing interim results that allowed participants to see how the action plans were taking shape in real-time.

Key Outcomes:

High Engagement: On average, each participant spent 45 minutes on the platform, posting over 7 comments and generating over 1,000 “likes.” The discussion quality was high, with 60% of comments receiving likes and 8% generating replies. The overall tone of the conversation was positive, with no need for moderator intervention.
Optimized Action Plans: Ethelo’s algorithm analyzed over 2 billion potential combinations of action items, applying pre-agreed criteria for viability (overall benefit, feasibility, and cost). From these, it identified nearly 7,000 viable scenarios that met management requirements. The final action plans were not only strongly supported by both staff and management, but also optimized for broad cohesion, minimizing dissent.
Increased Buy-In: The process fostered a sense of joint ownership between employees and management. Staff appreciated the opportunity to contribute their ideas and see how their input shaped the final plans.

Results and Feedback

At the end of the consultation, Ethelo delivered four highly optimized action plans for the Pacific Region’s departments. The plans were well-supported by staff and aligned with both regional and national objectives as determined by management. Management highlighted the transparency and inclusivity of the process as key factors in its success.

Participant Feedback:

“I liked that this wasn’t simply a ‘rate from 1-10’ exercise.”
“Great to be able to see input from colleagues.”
“I appreciated the ability to add comments for clarification.”
“I like that we are actually being asked what we think, and the comments forum to hear what our colleagues think is great!”

Conclusion

The Ethelo platform proved to be an effective tool for collaborative staff action planning. By combining social-media-style dialogue with advanced algorithmic analysis, it enabled the Pacific Region to create actionable, widely supported plans in a transparent and inclusive manner. The process not only addressed the immediate challenges identified in the PSES but also fostered greater unity and buy-in among staff. As a result, Ethelo’s approach is being presented at high-level government meetings, showcasing its potential for broader application within the public service.

“The staff engagement process was successful in creating optimal action plans. Using Ethelo brought transparency and inclusivity to the process. One of the major contributions of the platform was to enable joint plan ownership between management employees and management.”

Diabetes Canada

case-study — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:03:09 +0000

Ethelo Engagement to Inform Canada’s National Diabetes Framework

When the Canadian Government passed an act (Bill C-237) to establish a National Framework for Diabetes in June 2021, it imposed a tight deadline for public engagement. The Minister of Health was required to table a report in Parliament within one year of the bill receiving Royal Assent, meaning that capturing public input would be essential but also time-sensitive. Involving citizens and people with a lived experience of diabetes was a top priority to ensure the final framework accurately reflected the real-world challenges and ideas of those affected.

However, public consultation was delayed by the 2021 election, compressing the timeline even further. Traditional engagement platforms could not feasibly gather broad-based feedback and produce real-time, actionable insights at the speed required. Instead, the Public Health Agency of Canada partnered with the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and the Ethelo engagement platform to reach more people faster, providing “a much stronger voice of people with lived experience than we got in either our key informant interviews or our online dialogues,” as Dr. Diane T. Finegood (SFU Professor and Fellow) explains.

884 people
participated in the engagement

91% of respondents prioritized access to medicine, medical devices, and financial support, followed by better tools for self-management (80%) and improvements in care delivery (70%

Dr. Diane T. Finegood

Professor

Health Agency of Canada to develop a comprehensive plan that included:

Key Informant Interviews: Gathering insights from diverse stakeholders and experts.
Virtual Dialogue Sessions: Facilitating discussion on issues and challenges related to diabetes.
Online Survey via Ethelo: Extending engagement to citizens across Canada to capture their perspectives.

These activities aimed to increase the Public Health Agency of Canada’s understanding of the challenges, priorities, and recommendations of people living with or impacted by diabetes. With the parliamentary deadline looming, the team needed a tool that could deliver real-time, transparent results to ensure participant feedback could quickly inform the national framework. According to Dr. Finegood, “that real-time transparency was very important because we knew we couldn’t finish the process and have the reports fast enough to meet the needs of the Public Health Agency. If the input of participants was going to influence the framework, then they would have to be able to see the results as they were coming in.”

The Value of Qualitative Data

Adapting the discussion guide from the dialogue sessions for the online platform, Ethelo provided both English and French versions of the survey. Over 800 people took part, contributing more than 5,000 comments during the five weeks it was open. These comments validated themes from earlier interviews and dialogues but also revealed new insights about how Canadians living with or affected by diabetes truly felt. Reflecting on this breadth of feedback, Dr. Finegood notes that “the comments were incredibly rich and the fact there were so many helped us validate some of the things we’d heard in the dialogue.”

Ethelo’s design allowed participants to see and respond to others’ comments, facilitating a dynamic dialogue rather than a static questionnaire. The project team—responsible for proposing elements of the national framework—could access evolving results in real time, enabling immediate integration of the findings. Dr. Finegood underscores the importance of this feature: “I think it was very valuable that people could see other people’s comments, could see what they rated highly, could look at the distribution. That immediate feedback to the participant provides them with valuable insight.”

To manage the volume of feedback, Ethelo’s team analyzed a representative sample of 2,000 comments, categorizing them into key themes such as access to interprofessional health care, diabetes awareness and education, lifestyle-related stigma, and differentiating between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. This analysis, Dr. Finegood explains, “reinforced the importance to people with Type 1 to not talk about diabetes but to talk about Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes as very different diseases. It’s not one thing,” underscoring the need to distinguish the two conditions when discussing stigma, prevention, and care.

Influencing the Framework

By the end of the engagement, about 55% of respondents reported having personal experience with diabetes or caring for someone who did—significantly amplifying the lived-experience voice in the final recommendations. Healthcare professionals, researchers, advocates, and private sector stakeholders also participated, creating a comprehensive view of differing priorities. As Dr. Finegood puts it, “theming of those comments was helpful in building the narrative in the report and understanding where the narrative came from. i.e. people with a lived experience had a particular point of view.”

Key priorities identified through the survey included prevention, care delivery, self-management, research, and access to medical and financial support. Notably, 91% of respondents prioritized access to medicine, medical devices, and financial support, followed by better tools for self-management (80%) and improvements in care delivery (70%). Real-time data allowed the framework’s authors to incorporate these insights while the survey was still active, ensuring the voices of participants helped shape the final report. “There is a strong similarity between the content of our what-we-heard report and what went into the framework…The report has had an impact on the framework,” remarks Dr. Finegood.

Finally, the wealth of data gathered offers a rich foundation for future policy and advocacy efforts. “There is such a richness of data that was collected that we don’t want to lose it. We need to determine how to summarize this in ways that will be useful in future and used for the next stage of engagement,” notes Dr. Finegood.

Conclusion

By leveraging Ethelo’s real-time transparency and capacity to capture extensive qualitative feedback, the project team successfully engaged a broad cross-section of Canadians in under five weeks. In doing so, they met legislative timelines, incorporated the lived experiences of those most affected by diabetes, and informed a national framework with concrete, data-driven insights. A summary of this engagement can be found

This case study shows how innovative engagement platforms, combined with thoughtful dialogue guides and structured analysis, can yield meaningful public input—even under tight deadlines—and ensure that key policy decisions are grounded in the voices of those they aim to serve. A summary of the overall engagement can be found on the Government of Canada’s website, describing all the phases of the engagement, including Ethelo’s contributions.

“Ethelo was very valuable because it gave us a much stronger voice of people with lived experience than we got in either our key informant interviews or our online dialogues.”
– Dr. Diane T. Finegood, SFU Professor and Fellow

Mobility Pricing

case-study — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 03:08:19 +0000

Including 17,000 residents in a discussion about traffic congestion

Anyone who has ever been to Metro Vancouver knows that traffic is a problem. The Mobility Pricing Independent Commission was established in 2017 to try and fix that problem by exploring how the mobility pricing model would look in Metro Vancouver. The commission contracted Argyle PR (formerly known as Context Research) to implement its public education and engagement program, known as the It’s Time project.

Argyle chose Ethelo as the online platform to meet its goal of engaging a broad cross-section of residents and commuters. The commission knew that the idea of paying to use roads would be contentious, so they wanted to ensure the project was done with transparency and included diverse viewpoints. With Ethelo, more than 17,000 people shared 5,000 comments in four different languages. The Argyle team could see where people were polarized on the issue and use that data to report back to the commission about areas of support and disagreement.

17,000
participants

5,000
comments

Miranda Eng

Senior consultant

Including 17,000 Residents in a Discussion About Traffic Congestion

Traffic congestion is a well-known issue in Metro Vancouver, with nearly 90% of residents expressing frustration at delays and over 80% reporting lost time each week. In 2017, the Mobility Pricing Independent Commission was established to explore solutions, including mobility pricing. This approach, used in cities like London and Singapore, introduces charges to reduce congestion and encourage sustainable transportation.

Recognizing the sensitivity of paying for road use, the commission prioritized transparency and diverse input through the It’s Time project, a public education and engagement initiative. Argyle PR, tasked with delivering the program, selected Ethelo as the online platform to engage a broad cross-section of residents and commuters. The platform allowed over 17,000 participants to share 5,000 comments in four languages, ensuring inclusive and meaningful engagement.

Phased Engagement and Transparency

The It’s Time project had two phases. Phase One introduced the concept of mobility pricing, asking residents how traffic congestion affected them and what fairness should look like in such a system. Phase Two built on this input, seeking feedback on specific solutions, such as a distance-based charge or fuel tax adjustments.

Ethelo made the engagement process accessible with consultations available in English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Punjabi. Paper surveys were also distributed to ensure representation from residents with limited internet access. All responses were integrated into Ethelo for analysis, ensuring every voice was counted.

“We were committed to democratic processes and wanted voices to be heard on decisions that impact them,” said Argyle Senior Consultant Miranda Eng. The team monitored comments for offensive language but otherwise allowed open dialogue, encouraging candid discussion from all perspectives.

Key Insights and Findings

The consultation revealed significant polarization. Comments ranged from labeling mobility pricing a “money grab” to supporting it as a tool for promoting sustainable transportation. Ethelo’s analysis highlighted areas of disagreement and identified common ground, providing a clear view of public sentiment.

Participants provided valuable insights into the challenges and benefits of mobility pricing. These findings were used to inform the commission’s final report, which addressed concerns directly, quoting participant feedback to explain the need for an effective decongestion charge.

“It is easy to characterize a decongestion charge as a ‘money grab,’” the report noted, “but the less you charge, the more it becomes just that. The charge must be sufficient to unlock benefits like reduced congestion and more efficient mobility.”

Building Trust and Driving Change

By fostering open dialogue and addressing criticism transparently, the project earned public trust in the process. “We weren’t scared of criticism, which helped build trust in the engagement,” said Eng. The Ethelo platform’s real-time reporting and social interaction features were critical in maintaining credibility and ensuring insights were actionable.

Argyle’s collaboration with Ethelo successfully engaged tens of thousands of residents, providing the commission with a detailed understanding of public attitudes. This inclusive approach helped shape meaningful recommendations for addressing Metro Vancouver’s long-standing traffic challenges.

“Using Ethelo as the tool for our digital engagement program was crucial,” Eng concluded. “It welcomed polarizing input and dialogue, ensuring credibility in the final report and recommendations.”

“Using Ethelo as the tool for our digital engagement program was crucial. It welcomed polarizing input and dialogue, ensuring credibility in the final report and recommendations.”

Miranda Eng

Joint Strategic Planning

case-study — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 02:21:53 +0000

Collaborative Strategy Redesign: PHS Engages Staff with Ethelo Platform

After a major leadership shift, Vancouver’s Portland Hotel Society embraced a collaborative approach to strategic planning using Ethelo. The goal was to prioritize initiatives while addressing staff resistance to change. Ethelo’s seamless forum enabled over 90 staff members across multiple locations to vote and comment on proposals, blending their perspectives with operational constraints.

The process built confidence and support among staff while providing directors with clear insights into the most well-supported initiatives across five strategic areas. By streamlining engagement, Ethelo saved significant time, delivering immediate value and fostering a sense of shared purpose among the team. This participatory method ensured strategic decisions were grounded in both staff input and organizational priorities.

3600 scenarios
evaluated

88% support
for plan

Eamonn O’Laocha

Interim Executive Director

The Portland Hotel Society (PHS)

The Portland Hotel Society (PHS) is one of Vancouver’s largest advocates and service providers for disadvantaged populations in the downtown core. It is renowned for creating and overseeing Canada’s first Safe Injection Site, Insite, and pioneering many areas of health outreach for marginalized populations.

Despite its laudable achievements, financial irregularities forced PHS to bring in an entirely new management team and board of directors. Recognizing the significant organizational changes, the interim Executive Director initiated a highly participatory approach to strategic decision-making, aiming to engage both directors and staff in creating a shared vision for the organization’s future.

The Challenge

The former PHS management was dynamic and highly innovative, inspiring a passionate and dedicated staff. However, the newly hired executive team introduced a more stable but bureaucratic approach, creating a clash of cultures between leadership and approximately 400 staff members.

PHS needed a fresh start and a way to manage change that could build unity and buy-in, compensating for the challenges arising from the sudden management transition. The engagement of over 400 staff members was further complicated by their distribution across multiple locations and varied programs. In-person meetings risked fostering “group-think” and excluding less vocal employees, potentially hampering implementation success.

To address these issues, PHS turned to Ethelo, an open, interactive platform for strategy design.

The project called for staff and board input into five core areas requiring strategic attention.

Staff-Driven Ideation

A staff focus group generated initial ideas that were used to seed the Ethelo platform. These ideas were vetted by the executive team and distilled into 12 potential initiatives across five strategic areas. For example, in the “Advocacy” area, initiatives included:

Hiring an outreach worker.
Creating partnerships.
Researching the business case for a street market.

Each initiative was uploaded to Ethelo for rating and commentary. To ensure inclusivity, the platform allowed staff to add additional suggestions. The executive team reviewed these new suggestions, approving actionable ones for general evaluation by all staff. One such approved suggestion was hiring an Aboriginal outreach worker.ç

Management-Driven Constraints

While staff input identified potential initiatives, the executive team ensured ideas were actionable within organizational resources. Initiatives were evaluated based on:

Effort Units: The intensity of work required.
Time to Accomplish: How long completion would take.
Funding Mode: Donations, grants, or partnerships.
Stand-Alone or Partnered: The need for collaboration.

This information guided staff in prioritizing initiatives.

Engagement and Results

Of the 435 PHS staff members invited, 88 participated in the strategic evaluation, providing an overall participation rate of 20%. Participants voted on an average of 73% of the initiatives and contributed 12 additional suggestions. Each initiative received an average of 6.7 comments, fostering a collaborative atmosphere.

The platform ensured inclusivity and avoided the pitfalls of traditional surveys. Interim Executive Director Eamonn O’Laocha commented:
“Using Ethelo allowed us to overcome the limitations of engaging the organization’s staff in a collaborative, manageable, and timely manner. This enabled us to identify a relevant and congruent strategic direction for the organization.”

Optimizing for Support and Viability

Given limited resources, PHS needed feasible strategic scenarios. Management estimated the required effort level for each initiative, with Ethelo ensuring all plans adhered to a maximum of 30 effort units. This reduced 8,000 potential scenarios to 3,689, ranked by staff support. Ultimately, the optimal plan consisted of nine initiatives with 88% organizational support, all within the 30-unit effort budget.

Estimated Time and Cost Savings

Ethelo brought significant efficiency gains. Staff saved an estimated four hours compared to standard surveys due to the platform’s ease of use and integrated commentary. Management saved an additional 22 hours by streamlining analysis and initiative shortlisting. These efficiencies resulted in a 35% cost savings compared to other methods.

PHS quickly implemented one of Ethelo’s validated recommendations. O’Laocha emphasized:
“Taking the first step in strategy development was about connecting to the shared wisdom of the many capable and innovative people in the organization. Limitations in our ability to engage would have directly hampered our strategic possibilities.”

“Using Ethelo allowed us to overcome limitations in engaging the organization’s staff in a collaborative, manageable and timely manner. This allowed us to identify a relevant and congruent strategic direction for the organization.”

Eamon O’Laocha, PHS Interim Executive Director

Official Community Planning

case-study — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 01:25:48 +0000

Fostering transparency and public support for the Official Community Plan

Following a citizen open house, Modus Consulting used Ethelo to validate areas in Gibson’s Official Community Plan. Over 165 participants added 23 new proposals and contributed 1,200+ comments. Various levels of support for recommended changes reflected the community’s diverse opinions. Modus Engagement Specialist, Vince Verlaan, affirms: “We required an easy-to-configure and user-friendly digital platform… working with Ethelo in this planning project was a successful collaboration.”

1200+
comments

165
participants

Vince Verlaan

Engagement Specialist

To update their Official Community Plan (OCP) the town of Gibsons, BC, worked with Ethelo Decisions through Vince Verlaan, an engagement specialist from the firm MODUS Planning, Design and Engagement. Gibsons used Ethelo in two stages of its planning process. The first stage was to seek public input on proposed changes to the current OCP, and the second to validate final revisions to the OCP arising out of the first stage.

Approach

Through an open house and a questionnaire completed by 92 people, it was established what components of the former OCP were still relevant and where change was needed. This provided the foundational data necessary for the Ethelo Forum. Ethelo then worked closely with MODUS to create the structure of the online public input process. The OCP itself was re-organized into categories, topics and options for amendment.

After entering all this data into Ethelo, wording was tested and refined, and the overall configuration tested by Gibsons staff before the public process began.

Residents who participated in the first stage were presented with a brief survey that gathered demographic information for later analysis.

Participants then reviewed recommendations in 12 topic areas and were able to vote and provide comment-based feedback and make proposals. Ethelo’s structured approach allowed participants to easily weight the areas that were most important to them, and engage with other participants in a focused manner. Because the voting period was held open for a period of time, the participants could log back in to check in on the conversation happening in the comments section, and adjust their votes dynamically as they learned more.

Results

In the first stage, 387 participants were invited and 164 participated in the process, for a 42% response rate. More than 1,200 comments were contributed, and 23 new proposals were made. Support for the recommended changes ranged from mild support to total support reﬂecting the community’s diverse opinions. Those participants were invited a final confirmation stage;

77 residents participated and provided 143 comments.

A participant provided these insights on the process, “Thanks for going to such great lengths so residents (and others) can contribute their thoughts, we all love Gibsons and plan to live here as long as we can.”

“Our public consultation services require easy-to-configure and user-friendly digital
platforms, and our recent pilot of Ethelo in a community planning project was a successful collaboration. The team at Ethelo are very thoughtful about how to build their platform to support projects like this, and they were very responsive to our requests for tweaks to ensure success. I will work with them again for sure.”

Vince Verlaan

Expert Investing

case-study — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 14:12:11 +0000

Expert evaluation of investment opportunities

In October 2014, more than 70 Angel investors attended the Vancouver Angel Forum, which saw presentations by 18 different companies selected from 53 applicants. Ethelo was retained by a group of investors to assist in evaluating the companies according to five criteria. Twenty investors collaborated using Ethelo, and successfully predicted 4 of the 5 companies selected for awards by the Investor Award judges. Ethelo was one of those winning companies.

20
Investors

5
Criteria

Surrey White-Rock – Gordon Hogg

case-study — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:09:14 +0000

Empowering Surrey-White Rock: Community Priorities Through Collaborative Engagement

Sponsored by MLA Gordon Hogg and facilitated by Ethelo, this initiative brought together over 40 community leaders and residents to identify high-impact priorities that would make their community more caring, resilient, and connected. Using a combination of in-person focus groups and Ethelo’s innovative online platform, participants collaboratively identified 21 initiatives across eight key focus areas. The process was designed to be transparent and inclusive, allowing citizens to weigh in, share over 100 comments, and even propose six new ideas. The result? A clear, community-backed shortlist of the top five initiatives, reflecting the collective voice of Surrey-White Rock residents.

This project not only demonstrated the power of technology in fostering civic engagement but also highlighted the importance of collaboration between community members, leaders, and government representatives. The overwhelmingly positive response—89% support for the top initiatives—underscored the success of the process, which was celebrated in local media like the Peace Arch News and Local Web News.

89% for
for final shortlist

50 community
leaders

Gordie Hogg

MLA, Surrey White Rock

WHO

The Constituency Association of Surrey/White Rock, in collaboration with MLA Gordon Hogg, used Ethelo’s innovative platform to engage citizens in identifying and prioritizing community initiatives.

GOALS

The project aimed to foster a sense of ownership and transparency while identifying high-impact initiatives to make the Surrey-White Rock community more “caring, resilient, and connected.” The use of technology was central to empowering residents and ensuring broad participation.

HOW

Ethelo facilitated a seamless process for collecting votes and comments, enabling citizens to dynamically engage in selecting community priorities. The project combined in-person consultations with an online platform to maximize accessibility and participation.

OUTCOME

The process resulted in a transparent shortlist of five local initiatives with the highest level of public support. Over 40 community members participated, contributing 112 comments and suggesting six new initiatives. The platform achieved a 42% participation rate, with an average of 2.6 comments per user, allowing the local MLA to identify priorities that resonated with the community.

CONTEXT
Sponsored by MLA Gordon Hogg, this project sought to harness technology to empower the Surrey-White Rock community. As highlighted in the Peace Arch News, the initiative was part of a broader effort to use digital tools to engage citizens in decision-making. Ethelo was chosen for its ability to identify broadly supported strategies and facilitate meaningful collaboration, making it an ideal partner for this community-driven process.

APPROACH
On June 25, 2014, Ethelo’s team facilitated a focus group of nearly 50 community leaders and members, including service recipients and recognized “movers and shakers,” to identify key issues affecting the community. Using a world café-style approach, participants discussed and prioritized actions for collaboration. Following the in-person meeting, Ethelo consolidated the results and worked with the MLA’s office to draft background information, organizing 21 proposed initiatives into eight focus areas.

The initiatives were then uploaded to the Ethelo platform, where participants could weigh in and score proposals. The platform was opened to the public for two months, with extensive promotion to encourage participation. This digital democracy process was designed to make the process accessible and inclusive, allowing residents to engage at their convenience.

RESULTS

The online process saw over 40 participants voting and contributing more than 100 comments, along with six new initiative suggestions. Ethelo’s platform analyzed the data and identified the top five proposals with the strongest and broadest support (Fig. 3). These results informed the Constituency Association’s priority-setting for their government efforts on behalf of the community.

The initiative received positive coverage in the Peace Arch News, which highlighted the innovative use of technology to empower residents. The article emphasized how the process allowed citizens to “have their say” in shaping the community’s future. Additionally, Local Web News profiled the consultation through an interview with MLA Gordon Hogg and Ethelo’s CEO, John Richardson, further underscoring the project’s success.

SUMMARY OF RESULTS

Strength of Support: 89%
Top Initiatives:
- Childhood & Schools: Address Overcrowding
- Housing & Poverty: Poverty Reduction Plan
- Environment: Early Formal Education, Sustainable Product Environment Cost
- Inter-City Cooperation: Convene Working Group

This case study demonstrates how technology, combined with thoughtful community engagement, can empower residents to shape their future. By leveraging Ethelo’s platform, Surrey-White Rock set a powerful example of how digital tools can enhance civic participation and drive meaningful change.

“When Metro Vancouver conducted a study of issues that residents felt were most important, it was anticipated that the frontrunners would be poverty and homelessness. Instead, the biggest issues were people feeling isolated and alone – how do you get people engaged?”

Surrey- White Rock

case-study — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 21:37:23 +0000

Empowering Communities: South Surrey’s Digital Democracy in Action

In an era where trust in government institutions is often questioned, the South Surrey – White Rock online citizen engagement process stands as a shining example of how technology and collaboration can revitalize democracy. Led by Member of Parliament Gordie Hogg and powered by Ethelo’s innovative platform, this project was designed to bridge the gap between elected officials and the communities they serve. By inviting residents to actively participate in shaping policy solutions for critical local issues—such as affordable housing, railway safety, and the opioid crisis—the initiative demonstrated that meaningful public engagement is not only possible but essential for building a more inclusive and responsive democracy. This process wasn’t just about gathering opinions; it was about empowering citizens to take ownership of the decisions that directly impact their lives.

The benefits of this project extended far beyond the identification of policy priorities. By engaging over 300 residents in thoughtful discussions and decision-making, the initiative fostered a sense of democratic empowerment that is often missing in traditional top-down approaches. Participants weren’t just passive observers—they were active contributors, voting on policies, sharing insights, and seeing their voices reflected in real-time results. This level of transparency and participation not only strengthened the community’s trust in the political process but also provided Gordie Hogg with a clear mandate to advocate for these priorities in the Parliament of Canada. Armed with the collective wisdom of his constituents, Hogg was able to bring a truly grassroots perspective to federal policymaking, ensuring that the voices of South Surrey – White Rock were heard at the highest levels of government.

Ultimately, this project showcased the transformative power of citizen engagement in modern democracy. It proved that when people are given the tools and opportunity to participate, they can drive meaningful change in their communities. By combining expert knowledge with public input, the process delivered actionable solutions that reflected both technical feasibility and community values. More importantly, it reminded us that democracy thrives when citizens are not just consulted but actively involved in the decision-making process. Gordie Hogg’s use of the results to guide his parliamentary activities is a testament to the success of this approach—a success that serves as an inspiring model for other leaders seeking to deepen democratic participation and build stronger, more connected communities.

96% support
for final shortlist

300
participants

Gordie Hogg

MP, South Surrey White Rock

In early 2019, Gordie Hogg, Member of Parliament for South Surrey – White Rock (SSWR), partnered with Ethelo, an online engagement platform, to facilitate a citizen-driven policy consultation process. The goal was to engage residents in identifying and prioritizing policy solutions for five key local issues: Affordable Housing, Boundary Bay, Gun Safety and Gang Violence, Opioid Crisis, and Railway Safety. This case study outlines the process, outcomes, and lessons learned from this innovative approach to citizen engagement.

The Process

1. Expert Panel Recruitment and Policy Development

The process began in December 2018 with the recruitment of five expert panels, each focusing on one of the five policy areas. These panels, composed of local experts, stakeholders, and community leaders, were tasked with identifying specific policy options for each issue. The panels worked closely with Ethelo to draft policy recommendations that were both actionable and relevant to the community. By January 2019, the panels had identified a total of 30 policy options across the five topics.

2. Online Engagement

In April 2019, Ethelo launched a custom online platform where residents of South Surrey – White Rock could review, discuss, and vote on the proposed policy options. The platform was designed to be user-friendly, allowing participants to:

Learn about each policy option through concise summaries and detailed explanations.
Discuss the options with other community members.
Vote on their preferred policies and see how their choices contributed to the overall group results.

3. Community Participation

Over a two-month period (April to May 2019), more than 300 residents actively participated in the online engagement process. They provided over 800 detailed comments and shortlisted their top 10 policy options from the 30 proposed. The platform allowed participants to see real-time results, fostering a sense of transparency and collective decision-making.

4. Promotion and Outreach

To ensure broad participation, the project was promoted through multiple channels:

Householder Brochure: A brochure was distributed to every home in the riding, introducing the exercise and providing a brief overview of the policy issues.
Social Media: Regular updates and policy briefs were shared on Facebook, encouraging residents to participate.
Email Campaigns: Email blasts were sent to individuals who had previously interacted with the MP’s office.
Local Media: Ads and interviews were conducted on Pulse FM radio, and coverage was secured in the Peace Arch News.
Community Office: Visitors to the constituency office were encouraged to participate using an iPad set up for the survey.

Outcomes

1. Policy Prioritization

Based on the feedback from residents, Ethelo identified a shortlist of 10 policy options that received positive support from over 96% of respondents. These options were spread across the five policy areas and reflected the community’s priorities. For example:

Affordable Housing: Residents strongly supported policies such as allowing charitable housing providers to build mixed-income housing and increasing the first-time home-buyers tax credit.
Railway Safety: There was significant support for reducing train speeds near Crescent Beach and relocating the BNSF rail line away from the shoreline.
Opioid Crisis: Residents favored decriminalizing small amounts of drugs and implementing a national accreditation program for addiction treatment providers.

2. Community Engagement

The process successfully engaged a diverse cross-section of the community, with over 300 residents participating in the online platform. The high level of engagement was attributed to the ease of use of the platform, the relevance of the policy issues, and the extensive outreach efforts.

3. Expert and Resident Collaboration

The collaboration between expert panels and residents ensured that the policy options were both technically sound and aligned with community values. The expert panels provided the necessary depth and expertise, while the residents brought local knowledge and priorities to the table.

Lessons Learned

Importance of Early Engagement
The early involvement of expert panels in the policy development phase was crucial. It ensured that the policy options presented to residents were well-researched and actionable. This also helped build trust in the process, as residents could see that their input was being informed by expert knowledge.
Transparency and Real-Time Feedback
The use of an online platform that provided real-time feedback on voting results and discussions helped maintain transparency throughout the process. Participants could see how their individual votes contributed to the collective decision-making, which increased their sense of ownership over the outcomes.
Multi-Channel Promotion
The success of the engagement process was largely due to the multi-channel promotion strategy. By leveraging both traditional (e.g., householder brochures, local media) and digital (e.g., social media, email) channels, the project was able to reach a broad and diverse audience.
Balancing Expert Input with Community Priorities
The process demonstrated the importance of balancing expert input with community priorities. While the expert panels provided the necessary technical expertise, the final prioritization of policies was driven by the residents, ensuring that the outcomes reflected the community’s values and needs.

Conclusion

The South Surrey – White Rock online citizen engagement process, led by Gordie Hogg and supported by Ethelo, successfully demonstrated how technology can be used to facilitate meaningful public participation in policy development. By combining expert knowledge with community input, the process not only identified actionable policy solutions but also strengthened the relationship between residents and their elected representatives. This case study serves as a model for other communities looking to engage citizens in decision-making processes in a transparent, inclusive, and effective manner.

I wanted to make it as apolitical as we could. How do we take care of each other? How do we look after each other? How do we look at people not for the defects we have, but the gifts we all bring?

Infrastructure Project Budgeting

case-study — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:16:09 +0000

Stratford residents agree to increase taxes for long-term projects

The City of Stratford PEI had $2 million available to fund various long-term projects. But the cost of financing and operating identified new facilities and offering more programs and services exceeded the $2 million available.

Ethelo helped the City include residents in a discussion about which facilities they supported most, and whether they’d be willing to pay more taxes to make their priorities a reality. Stratford learned from a representative sample of the community that people were willing to contribute more tax dollars to pay for projects they valued. And city council was able to pass a budget that included tax increases aimed at funding long-term commitments residents supported.

975
people participated

87% support
for decision

Robert Hughes

Chief Administrative Officer, Town of Stratford

Understanding which facilities residents want most

Stratford is a fast-growing community with significant demand for additional infrastructure, programs and services. The Town developed a 10-year financial forecast based on growth projections and current tax rates. It determined that it would have approximately $2 million per year to fund additional programs and services by the end of the 10-year period. The cost of financing and operating identified new facilities and offering more programs and services exceeded the $2 million available.

The Town needed to understand which facilities, programs and services were most important to residents to prioritize the spending of the $2 million available and whether or not residents were willing to pay more taxes for additional facilities, programs and services.

They used Ethelo to include residents in the discussion and understand where people stood on spending for new facilities. The online Ethelo engagement let taxpayers identify which facilities they thought the Town should build, and how much more tax they would have to pay to make their priorities a reality.

“This was a great way to engage our citizens in a dialogue about long term spending priorities for the Town, which Council and staff used to inform important decisions about future capital and operating investments,” says Robert Hughes, the Chief Administrative Officer of Stratford

Participants could enter their property values and see how much they were currently paying in taxes. Then they voted on projects they liked until they hit the $2 million mark. If they added any more projects beyond that, they could see their tax bill increase accordingly. So they could make trade-offs between projects they liked and how much more tax they were willing to pay. They could also indicate if they were willing to help with fundraising for the projects to offset any tax increases.

About 975 people participated, or about ten per cent of the Town’s population. The Ethelo data clearly showed that Stratford residents were willing to accept tax increases to fund long-term investments in several key projects.

Average Property Tax Bill $954
Average Property Tax Increase $139
Support Score: 87%

Robert Hughes

Strategic Risk Assessment

case-study — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 18:09:50 +0000

Government of Canada

In late 2016, senior management at a federal department needed to identify and rank regional risks to present to the Regional Director General. The timeline was just five days — far too short for conventional workshops or lengthy meetings.

Officials required a process that balanced speed, integrity, and transparency.

87%
participation rate

22+

comments

Approach

The process was structured in two stages:

Stage 1 – Initial Review:

Participants rated the importance of existing risks for inclusion.

They could also comment and propose new risks.

Stage 2 – Ranking & Evaluation:

Refined list of risks was rated on three criteria: impact, likelihood, practicality.

Participants could again weigh in on new risks.

The Ethelo platform combined qualitative commentary with quantitative scoring, creating an auditable trail and equal participation opportunities.

Results

The Ethelo engagement proved a highly efficient way to gather input;

87% participation rate, ensuring representation of senior managers.

22 comments recorded, with replies fostering dialogue.

Average completion time under 10 minutes per participant.

Final risk shortlist generated within the five-day deadline.

Impact

The process demonstrated the value of digital collaboration in high-stakes risk assessments. Ethelo enabled managers to share insights efficiently while producing results that were both defensible and transparent. Participant feedback highlighted ease of use:

“Easy! Thanks!”
“It really did take less than 10 minutes.”
“This is a very efficient tool for collecting input for this exercise.”

The successful pilot suggested a scalable model for future strategic risk processes.

“I have enjoyed the process of setting this up and using Ethelo. I love efficiency!”

– Sponsoring senior manager.