We welcome Iowa League member communities to the Polco platform, which will help you connect to your communities and gain valuable input from your residents.
What is Polco?
Polco is an online civic engagement platform that provides organizations with data-rich and referenceable input. This award-winning tool is user-friendly and gives officials the data they need to make more informed decisions. We deliver the ease and accessibility of online surveys combined with the verification and reliability of in-person engagement.
Polco was designed from inception by former public servants for organizations such as local governments, agencies, foundations, universities, nonprofits and more. After spending time at some of the country’s top tech companies, we wanted to bring world-class communication technology to the civic process.
With the opportunities to collect feedback limited by COVID-19, Polco is working with the League’s member communities to gather data from their residents with a custom survey created especially for League members and published from a free Polco profile.
How It Works
On Polco, you directly ask your community questions and add context with links, images and even video. You’ll also get the tools to promote your questions via social media, email, digital newsletters and affiliate organizations or other groups.
When you repost the Iowa League member survey on Polco, you can share the survey with your residents and compare your results with those of other communities. This will give your community and the Iowa League a statewide view of resident responses.
It’s easy to connect Facebook and Twitter to share your survey with your residents (this functionality is available on the final step as you are publishing your survey). Simply upload a picture of your city's logo with the short URL link to the survey. We've created a set of social media templates to make it easy for you! You can find more tips on outreach here.
Suggested text for Facebook, direct emails and your website:
{The City} is asking residents to help us gather information about how the community is dealing with COVID-19.
We will also be posting about this on Facebook and Twitter. Please share those messages with your friends and family, to ensure participation by a wide variety of residents. Be sure your voice is heard.
Once you have answered the questions, you will be asked to provide your ZIP code to confirm where you live. This lets us know what general area respondents live in. Your response will remain confidential, and your information will be securely stored on Polco.
We also ask for your email address, so we can contact you occasionally with new questions. Your email will be used only for questions from public agencies that need your feedback. Your privacy is guaranteed and Polco will never release any of your personal information, including your email address, to any third party for any reason.
Data Verification and Collection
When respondents answer their first questions, they set up an account with their zip code and email. Polco will later prompt users to provide their name with continued use of the platform. The name and zip code are verified using voter registration records, giving you additional demographic information such as gender, age range and voting district. Respondents can also add comments, providing you with an extra layer of context. Polco values respondent privacy and does not report individually identifying information.
Polco helps organizations develop “standing panels” who are notified by email of any new questions once a week. This helps generate ideas and allows you to get additional input whenever you need it.
Let’s Connect!
Feel free to send us an email to success@polco.us for further help and resources.