Community Planit is a
community planning
Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
platform that uses
gamification
Gamification is the process of enhancing systems, services, organisations and activities through the integration of game design elements and principles in non-game contexts. The goal is to increase user engagement, motivation, competition and ...
to diversify and engage citizens that participate in community decision-making. Designed by
Engagement Lab at Emerson College in September 2012, Community Planit is centered around time-sensitive games that help players use their voice in community decisions, as well as community leaders and local officeholders cheaply and easily gain feedback from difficult to reach stakeholders.
Incentives come in the form of coins which have several purposes:
"Coins function to rank players’ performance in the game, and also serve as a currency that can be spent on "causes" which are local projects that benefit the communities playing, such as college application assistance for low-income youth or funding a neighborhood bike program. Players with more coins accumulated have a greater impact on which causes win."
Each game culminates in real life community planning meeting that acts as a "Game Finale."
Operations
Games created on Community Planit's platform have ranged from the neighborhood level to the international level.
In April 2013, their game tackling Moldovan unemploymen
Youth@Workgained the attention of the UK news site,
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
.
In March, 2016, Community Planit featured a game about tackling Boston's carbon emissions and sustainability issues.
Funding
Community Planit is supported by the
Engagement Lab at Emerson College, as well as financial contributions from the
Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts.
The organization was founded as the Knight Memorial Education ...
.
Other sponsors include the
World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...
.
See also
*
Engagement Lab at Emerson College
Sources
External links
Official Website Emerson College
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