PublicInput

For clerks responsible for public meetings, software decisions carry more weight than efficiency alone.

They directly impact compliance, meeting integrity, and how defensible your public record is if questions arise later.

This new guide breaks down what to look for in meeting software designed specifically for government workflows, from hybrid participation to minutes and records.

👇Explore some of the key questions to ask before you choose a platform.
https://hubs.la/Q04lsf1t0

What Every Clerk Should Know Before Choosing Meetings Software Most software decisions are about efficiency. A clerk’s decision about meetings software is about something more consequential: legal compliance.

For many government agencies, public engagement happens across a mix of meetings, surveys, outreach, and digital tools that all play a role in reaching residents and collecting input.

The challenge is that when those systems are not connected, it can take extra effort to bring the full story of engagement together when it matters most.

This article explores where those gaps tend to show up and how teams are thinking about more connected approaches that make engagement easier to manage and understand over time.

Read more to see how agencies are strengthening the way engagement is captured and maintained across their work. https://hubs.la/Q04lt14m0

Why Disjointed Public Engagement Tools Create Compliance Risk Most agencies aren’t struggling to do engagement, they’re struggling to manage it across too many disconnected tools. They’re holding meetings, launching surveys, sending outreach, and collec…

A community needs assessment only works if it reaches the people whose needs you are trying to understand.

That means going beyond a single format or channel and thinking intentionally about how different communities can participate, how feedback is captured, and what happens after it is collected.

We break down four practical strategies for designing needs assessments that improve reach, strengthen response quality, and support ongoing community relationships.

Explore the full article:

Four Key Strategies for Successful Community Needs Assessment Surveys This guide covers four strategies that consistently produce better results: meeting people where they are, keeping surveys simple, leaving room for unexpected insights, and capturing contact inform…

Public engagement is often managed across multiple tools that were not designed to work together.

That usually works day to day. The challenge comes when agencies need a complete record of how a process was run, what was collected, and whether it meets requirements for open records, accessibility, and inclusion.

Explore where compliance risk shows up in disconnected workflows and why it matters:

Why Disjointed Public Engagement Tools Create Compliance Risk Most agencies aren’t struggling to do engagement, they’re struggling to manage it across too many disconnected tools. They’re holding meetings, launching surveys, sending outreach, and collec…

Accessible public engagement isn't just about meeting requirements. It's about making sure every resident can actually participate, regardless of device, channel, or how they interact with information.

Planners getting this right aren't working harder. They're building accessibility into the workflow from the start, so consistency is a natural output of the process rather than something to chase down after the fact.

Read the full post to see what that looks like in practice. https://hubs.la/Q04hZcBW0

Accessible Public Engagement for Planners: Making ADA Compliance Work Across the Workflow Public engagement only works when people can actually participate in it. For planners, the challenge is not understanding accessibility requirements. It is making them consistent across every engag…

Compliance in public engagement isn't something you prove at the end of a project. It's something you build into the process from the start.

That means knowing who needs to be heard, not just who's easiest to reach. It means accessible meetings, language access, and documentation that holds up. It means closing the loop between input and outcomes.

Five compliance categories. One checklist to see where your process actually stands.

Read the full checklist: https://hubs.la/Q04hZdq80

A Public Engagement Compliance Checklist for Advancing Equity This checklist helps government practitioners evaluate where their current process stands across five compliance categories, organized around federal requirements for engagement design and executio…

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day ( ) — and for government agencies, it's worth pausing on what accessible public engagement actually requires.

Not just accessible meeting rooms. Accessible project pages. Accessible email campaigns. Accessible survey forms. Content that works for everyone, before it goes live.

PublicInput is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant, actively working toward 2.2, and now includes a built-in accessibility checker directly in the content editor, so your team can catch issues in project pages, portal content, and email templates before they reach the public.

ADA Title II compliance isn't optional. The tools to get there should at least be straightforward. 🔗 https://hubs.la/Q04gBFPl0

Accessible By Design: How PublicInput Supports ADA Compliance Public engagement only works when everyone can actually participate. Here’s how PublicInput is making that easier – across your content, your meetings, and your platform. Our Commitment…

The average COG or transit agency spends 10–15 FTE-hours per meeting on agenda prep, ex*****on, and post-meeting documentation. Multiply that across your full board and committee calendar, and you're looking at weeks of staff time per year.

That's not a staffing problem. It's a workflow problem.

📅 Join us Wednesday, June 3rd at 1 PM ET for a free 30-minute webinar: How COGs and Transit Agencies Are Running More Meetings In Less Time.

We'll cover:
• The real FTE cost of your meeting calendar
• How AI agenda and minutes tools are returning capacity to COG staff and member agencies
• How transportation agencies are turning Title VI, ADA, and federal compliance docs into automatic outputs
• A live demo of the full workflow — agenda upload to published minutes

Executive Directors: if you're ready to stop treating the administrative grind as inevitable, this session is for you.

Register here: https://hubs.la/Q04hldJv0

How COGs and Transit Agencies Are Running More Meetings In Less Time Join us for this session designed for COGs and transit agencies to eliminate the administrative grind.

We’re excited to welcome Matthew Jones to the PublicInput team as our Product Manager.

Matthew brings a thoughtful, collaborative approach to building great products, and we’re thrilled to have him join us as we continue creating better ways for governments and communities to connect.

Welcome to the team, Matthew!

Our team is growing! 👋 Say hello to Brett Milano, PublicInput's newest Business Development Representative. Brett is hitting the ground running to help more communities discover what better public engagement can look like. Welcome to the team Brett, we are so glad you are here!