Engaged Cities Award
We know that cities around the world are collaborating with their citizens to meet a wide array of challenges. Together, city leaders and residents are reducing community violence, building better budgets, creating safer streets, and much more.
That’s why Cities of Service created the Engaged Cities Award. We aim to find and elevate the diverse ways that city leaders are actively engaging their citizens to solve critical public problems.
Is your city engaged in this kind of problem-solving, world-changing work with citizens? Perhaps you are tapping into the power of citizen science initiatives to collect and analyze data. Or using community expertise to design better public services. Or crowdsourcing resident ideas to find new fixes for old problems.
The Engaged Cities Award celebrates the most effective solutions – ultimately enabling peer cities around the world to learn from, adopt, and improve upon them.
Our Philosophy
Citizen collaboration is a force for good
Local government works better when it is open to the ideas and talents of citizens and starts with an assumption that citizen collaboration is a force for good.
Citizen contributions can take many forms
Citizen contributions can take many forms, from defining and prioritizing problems to generating ideas and volunteering their time, creativity, and expertise.
Citizen expertise can help solve public problems
Citizens have deep expertise in their own lives and in what’s best for their families and communities – and this expertise can be leveraged to deliver better services and solve public problems.
What does "citizen" mean to us?
Cities of Service defines a citizen as a person who lives or works in the city and is an integral part of their community, regardless of legal status.
Learn moreThe Latest
09/10/2019
Scenes from our 2019 Engaged Cities Award Finalist Site Visits
Cities of Service staff spent a few weeks traveling from city to city to learn more about the 10 Engaged Cities Award finalists.
Read more07/16/2019
2019 Engaged Cities Award Finalists
Learn more about the 2019 Engaged Cities Award finalists
Read more06/17/2019
Cities of Service Announces 10 Finalists for the 2019 Engaged Cities Award
Cities of Service today announced 10 finalists for the Engaged Cities Award, their recognition program that elevates the work being done in cities to partner with residents and solve a diverse range of problems.
Read more06/03/2019
Q&A with Marc Ott
Marc Ott, Executive Director of the International City/County Management Association, is a member of the Engaged Cities Award review committee.
Read more