Great communication planning leads to meaningful engagement.
Strategic Engagement Planning
No public engagement process is the same.
McElhanney’s planners develop tailored engagement plans to ensure an impactful, accessible process that allows participants to feel heard – enabling your projects to move forward with greater confidence through insightful engagement.
Our goal is to ensure a collaborative process, delivered in a way that everyone is aligned.
We work with you to identify your audience, the purpose of each outreach activity, the respective roles and responsibilities, and overall expectations and deliverables to allow your project to move forward.
Engagement in a digital space is an opportunity.
It is a chance to receive timely feedback and insight from your community so you can move forward with the diverse and timely input you require.
People Forward
At the end of the day, any engagement plan, digital or otherwise, must put human-to-human experience first.
Submitting an online survey or comment is not enough. Our team incorporates in-house communications platforms, or those of your preference, to connect you with your audience and provide in-person experiences. To make connections and listen to concerns, we can facilitate virtual breakout rooms using various online platforms and even carefully planned small in-person gatherings.
Our Approach
IAP2
No matter in what space your engagement plan lives, we rigorously apply the best practices outlined in the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation to inform, consult, involve, collaborate, and empower your audiences.
Nimble
Whether it is a fully digital experience for your community or incorporating in-person opportunities with safe physical distancing and sanitation measures, we look at all ways to invite diverse stakeholder engagement.
Project forward
McElhanney is a multidisciplinary firm with infrastructure consultants in disciplines like civil engineering and environmental assessment who can add insight to the next phases of your project. (Read more about all our services.)
Digital Engagement Spaces
Digital sites that inform and inspire feedback
Whether we use ESRI-integrated technologies (like StoryMaps), a custom website with moderation tools (like Synthetron), online surveys, or crowdsource apps, we collaborate with you to identify the best tools to connect to your community.
ESRI-integrated technologies
We can use ESRI-integrated technologies, including GIS-based online platforms like StoryMaps that integrate custom maps, video links, text, and images to tell the story of your project, from its history to its current issues and future solutions.
Contact us to learn more
3D Modelling & Fly Throughs
In-house 3D modelling & fly through development
Our in-house graphics team regularly create highly engaging 3D images, renderings, and fly throughs (animated 3D video), which allow your audience to experience the possibilities of your future project. These 3D products can be shared during a live online engagement session or embedded into a digital engagement space.
Case studies
A Virtual Stroll Through the Park
McElhanney developed and published 3D fly-throughs so the public could…
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Waterfront Centre
This Virtual Reality experience shows the potential of this technology and its benefits…
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Banff Upper Hot Springs
McElhanney created the Banff Upper Hot Springs 3D model using laser scanned data…
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Virtual & Augmented Reality
McElhanney also has an in-house virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) team who take stakeholder consultation and public engagement to the next level. At our in-house AR/VR collaboration space – or at your workplace – we can host AR/VR sessions with specialized tools and headsets. Talk to us about the possibilities.
Visit our AR / VR services page
Vertisee
GIS-based digital engagement tool
Our in-house, GIS-based interactive mapping tool, Vertisee, can be embedded in a site and used in a live digital engagement session. Vertisee is a customizable tool with a range of features – such as the capability of quickly converting AutoCAD drawings into maps that are easy to understand.
Contact us to learn more
Custom interactive maps & crowdsourcing
Vertisee offers crowdsourcing capabilities with its community engagement maps. Community members and stakeholders can add spatialized comments that can be moderated. Participants can also theme their feedback based on the established parameters of the interactive map (e.g., “I like this because”, “I think we can improve this by”, “I am concerned about this because” and “In the future, I would like to see.”)
Did you know?
Our in-house technology team is working in the background to produce a dynamic solution tailored for the future of virtual engagement. If you are interested to find out more, let us know.
Data Insights
Digitally sourced feedback
Digital data – automatically captured through online surveys, polls, feedback forms, social media comments, and website user metrics – tells you what your audience thinks, faster than ever before. This digitally sourced feedback allows you to be more time-effective with analysis and reporting, keeping your project on schedule.
Graphic Design & Communications
Graphic design & communications services
Our in-house marketing and communications department provides writing, graphic design, and communications services (display boards, report production, social media etc.) to assist with the various communications needs of your project.
Collaboration with your team
Our team will collaborate with your in-house communications department to get your digital engagement space out into the world.