Community PlanIt

Community Planit is a community planning platform that uses gamification to diversify and engage citizens that participate in community decision-making. Designed by Engagement Lab at Emerson College in September 2012,[1] 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.[2]

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.[3]"

Each game culminates in real life community planning meeting that acts as a "Game Finale."

Operations

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Games created on Community Planit's platform have ranged from the neighborhood level to the international level.[4]

Neighborhood level projects include What's "The Point"?[permanent dead link], a Salem-based game that involved citizens in a local visioning process.

In April 2013, their game tackling Moldovan unemployment Youth@Work gained the attention of the UK news site, The Guardian.[5]

In March, 2016, Community Planit featured a game about tackling Boston's carbon emissions and sustainability issues.[6]

Funding

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Community Planit is supported by the Engagement Lab at Emerson College, as well as financial contributions from the Knight Foundation.

Other sponsors include the World Wildlife Fund.[7]

See also

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Sources

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  1. ^ Lab, Engagement. "Engagement Lab". elab.emerson.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
  2. ^ "Community PlanIt | Planning Tool Exchange". www.planningtoolexchange.org. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
  3. ^ "Community PlanIt | Gamification World Map". www.gamificationworldmap.com. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
  4. ^ Lab, Engagement. "Engagement Lab". elab.emerson.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
  5. ^ Vujnovic, Vuk; Seecom (2014-04-29). "Europe's young democracies learn to speak less and listen more". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
  6. ^ Wilson, Christina (2016-03-26). "Community PlanIt: Climate Smart Boston — Launches March 25, Gathers Public Input on Climate Change… – Engagement Lab @ Emerson College". Medium. Retrieved 2016-12-16.
  7. ^ "Contact | Community PlanIt". www.communityplanit.org. Archived from the original on 2017-02-16. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
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