

Features
Given that both CitizenLab and EngagementHQ are frontrunners in the industry, they have both evolved to provide local governments with a range of engagement options across the participation ladder. Both companies allow you to customize your engagement sites, send out newsletters to your community, show project timelines, conduct polls and surveys, use option analysis and mapping features, and ask your community to share open ideas on the platform.
In addition to these features, the CitizenLab platform allows you to conduct participatory budgeting activities using our unique shopping cart system for residents to allocate “funds” to specific proposals as well as live remote workshops. CitizenLab is also able to provide user-friendly and easy-to-set-up multi-language support, regardless of how many languages your community speaks.

Service Comparison
Both companies provide you with a level of onboarding support. With CitizenLab, you will get a dedicated Government Success manager who will only have a maximum of 50 clients on their portfolio at any given time, which is lower than the industry standard. With fewer clients to manage, you will receive one-to-one attention and quick response rates to questions and needs that you might have.
In addition to the basic support levels, both companies provide paid service packages that can be purchased during the course of your contract. At CitizenLab, our standard onboarding provides an in-depth overview of how to do everything from setting up to communicating your new engagement platform and projects.
At any point during your engagement process, if you or your team simply no longer has additional bandwidth, we have developed four specific packages to help with everything from platform design to how to best market your platform to your community. Below is a list of our core packages:
- Platform design package: to help create a strong and clean visual identity for your platform
- Operational support package: to help configure registration, survey, and/or data sets in the platform
- Communications package: to develop a communication strategy and visuals to maximize the reach of your platform
- Project set-up package: delivers a complete project set-up based on the scope and priorities of project needs
To allow for more peer exchange and learning, CitizenLab has also developed both the CitizenLab Academy (an online self-learning platform) and the community platform, a space where CitizenLab clients can engage with one another to share community engagement and platform best practices. This includes but is not limited to providing product feedback, and submitting ideas for the CitizenLab product roadmap on an ongoing basis. Via our community platform, we are able to keep a strong pulse on the latest needs of our clients, and our nimble team moves quickly to respond, ensuring that every member of the CitizenLab community feels heard.