Engaging Communities to Shape Denver’s First Urban Forest Strategic Plan

Our communications strategy work began with establishing a clear, cohesive brand for the planning effort. We developed the campaign slogan “Help Us Plan(t) for the Future” and created messaging and materials that complemented the city’s established look and feel while giving the strategic plan initiative a distinct, recognizable presence of its own. 

From there, we built and executed an integrated community engagement strategy with a dual mandate: reach Denver residents broadly and intentionally include communities that have been historically excluded from civic planning processes. To accomplish this, we partnered with members of our Culturally Inclusive Collaborative (CIC), a network of trusted partners who bring lived experience, community relationships and cultural insight to the work. We developed a comprehensive toolkit including flyers, newsletter copy and social media graphics and content, which was distributed through community organizations and leaders in diverse and underrepresented neighborhoods across Denver, in addition to neighborhood associations and City Council members. This peer-to-peer distribution model ensured that outreach felt local and credible, not top-down. 

The strategy centered on two primary engagement mechanisms. First, we supported the development and distribution of two citywide surveys to capture broad public input, translating both into Spanish and Vietnamese to ensure accessibility for Denver’s diverse communities. A targeted paid social media campaign amplified survey participation, with ads geographically and linguistically targeted to reach residents in specific neighborhoods in their preferred language. Second, we helped plan and promote three Community Open Houses through the same toolkit and partner distribution network, supplemented by local recreation center outreach and city social media and newsletter channels. We also worked with community partners to identify existing community events where residents were already gathering and could provide feedback on the plan, meeting people where they were rather than asking them to come to us. 

Spanish outreach flyer