Bridging the Gap: Lifting up Unheard Community Voices and Enhancing Resident Engagement in Duluth through Effective Communication

Abstract

This project was completed as part of a partnership between the City of Duluth and the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (https://rcp.umn.edu/). The goal of this project was to evaluate current City communication practices, identify gaps in outreach, and provide recommendations to improve effectiveness. City of Duluth project lead Kelli Latuska collaborated with a team of students in Dr. Jeannie Entenza’s course PA 8081: Public Affairs and Public Policy Capstone to collect and analyze data, which included reviewing published data and literature, conducting a stakeholder and comparative staffing analysis, and examining several case studies of prior communications campaigns and opportunities for public engagement. A final student report and PowerPoint presentation slides from the project are available.