Crowdsourced Conversations sees big growth in third year

Participants at the recent Crowdsources Conversations forum on Severance Town Center. [photo: Sarah Wolf]

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Crowdsourced Conversations wraps up 2024 with a 40% increase in community participation compared to 2023, and a 107% increase since the program began in 2022.

This forum series, a program of FutureHeights, planned in partnership this year with Home Repair Resource Center, Heights Libraries, Cleveland Heights Green Team, and Heights Bicycle Coalition as well as Heights community members, provides opportunities for residents to gather for action-oriented dialogue around topics they select. This community-building program provides a safe and welcoming space for Cleveland Heights and University Heights residents to come together and brainstorm ways to become more engaged in the community.

Topics for 2024 included: Living Less Car-Centric: Active Transportation in the Heights; Turning the Noble Neighborhood & Business District Into a Destination; Our Public Parks; and Severance Town Center.

Every round of Crowdsourced Conversations follows the same cycle: First, a Heightswide survey circulates for a month to help forum planners better understand how the community feels about the topic at-hand. Second, planners turn survey data into a report that is shared with the community and used to generate small-group discussion questions for the forum. Next comes the forum itself, which flips the standard model of a panel of experts with an audience passively listening to one in which speakers make brief opening remarks followed by engaged small-group discussions which enable residents and their conversations to be the focus of the evening. Following each forum, a resource page is generated to share event highlights and ways for residents to get involved. Resource pages can be accessed at www.futureheights.org/our-community/ccresources/.

The Severance Town Center topic, in particular, drew high interest from the community, breaking program records for the most survey responses (734, a 99% increase over the 369 responses received for another 2024 topic, Living Less Car-Centric) and for the most forum participants (111, a 57% increase over the 70 who attended 2023 forum on Our Public Schools).

New in 2024 was University Heights Crowdsourced Conversations, a spin-off of the standard series, focusing specifically on University Heights.  Sustainability in University Heights was the first topic in the new series. University Heights Crowdsourced Conversations is made possible by a partnership between the city of University Heights, UH Mayor Michael Dylan Brennan, and Deanna Bremer Fisher, executive assistant to the mayor on special projects.  

Plans are already underway for the 2025 round of Crowdsourced Conversations. Those who attended 2024 forums were given the opportunity to nominate topics which will be put to a Heightswide vote beginning in December and concluding mid-January 2025. Voting will be conducted via an online form which will be accessible on FutureHeights social media channels as well as at www.futureheights.org. Any questions about Crowdsourced Conversations can be directed to swolf@futureheights.org.