The Neighborland Mission

Our mission is to empower people to shape the development of their neighborhoods.

As a social enterprise, Neighborland has worked with over 200 city agencies, universities, foundations, and non-profits across the U.S. Over 3,000,000 U.S. and Canadian residents have participated on our partners’ projects on Neighborland, and these projects have yielded over $3 billion in social and economic impact.

Along the way, we have learned how to help civil servants — including urban planners, NGO program directors, and university administrators — collaborate with the public more effectively. The traditional public engagement process is not working for most people. As more and more families rely on two working parents, it’s harder than ever for most people to get engaged with their local government. Our vision is a world were everyone creates the places they want to live in, not just those who have time to engage in the traditional forums. Perhaps Jane Jacobs said it best:

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

As a social enterprise, we have established a set of core values:

Listen

We believe that constructive dialogue starts with listening. By investing in a community-centered (or participatory) design process, civic leaders achieve better outcomes. In many ways, the magic of Neighborland is that it allows civic leaders to listen at an unprecedented scale, and we use technology to synthesize and analyze the data in an actionable way.

Collaborate

We believe in open and transparent collaboration. Residents, community leaders, and municipal governments each have valuable perspectives on the development of our neighborhoods. Public dialogue about ideas big and small should be accessible, ongoing, and inclusive. Neighborland complements traditional advocacy forums like neighborhood meetings and city council hearings, adding voices and energy to ongoing debates and projects. Connecting residents with organizations who are already working on solving a problem is key. There is no us or them. In the wise words of Theodore Roosevelt, “We are the government.”

Keep it simple

To achieve broad-based, inclusive, and representative stakeholder engagement, projects need to be easy to understand. Residents are often confused by highly technical and wonky urban planning and design terminology. We help our partners communicate with residents in plain language throughout their projects.

Don’t sell ads

We’re not a consumer technology company (ex. Nextdoor, Facebook, Twitter). We don’t exist to monetize our community’s attention. We license our software to our partners who are government agencies and civic organizations. Therefore, we will never be an advertising-driven enterprise, and we will never sell our community’s data to a third party.

Be patient

Solutions to our communities’ most important issues can be complex, and often organizations need residents to engage in a succession of actions over years to make ideas a reality. Cultural, political, social, and physical change in our neighborhoods is slow. Like decades slow. Our purpose is to accelerate the process.

Do good and do well

We exist to make a visible, positive impact on the people, environment, and economic conditions of the communities where we work. Because accessibility and equity are core values of ours, Neighborland will always be free to use for residents. We have built project management tools for civic leaders that we license for a monthly fee. Our purpose is to help civic organizations collaborate effectively with the public. By empowering residents and community leaders to work together on their most important problems, we will help them build healthy, vibrant, and resilient cities.