About the Municipality of Clarington
Clarington is a vibrant municipality located east of Toronto in the Region of Durham. The municipality, celebrated for its unique blend of urban and rural charm, includes four distinct urban centers— Bowmanville, Courtice, Newcastle, and Orono —and 14 hamlets.
With a population of 107,000 that is expected to double by 2051, Clarington is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area.
To better involve residents in shaping their community’s future, Clarington revamped its approach to community engagement, transitioning from outdated methods to a hybrid strategy that uses both modern online tools and traditional outreach.
“Prior to Social Pinpoint, our approach to community engagement was primarily one-sided. We had used another online engagement platform a few years back, but its limited functionality and poor reporting led us to phase it out after only a few projects. For years, we operated without an effective online tool, which left us with no way to capture input from our online community.”
– Leanne Walker, Marketing and Engagement Supervisor, Municipality of Clarington
Aiming for Change
The primary channels for keeping residents informed were Clarington This Week, a local newspaper, and social media. In-person public meetings often saw low turnout, with only a handful of participants, and text-based surveys rarely garnered more than 100 responses.
We recognized the need to modernize our approach,” explained Melissa. “We needed to find a solution that fostered two-way communications, especially once our local newspaper discontinued print circulation.”
Committed to refining their approach, Clarington turned to online engagement. While searching for a digital solution, Leanne noted:
Social Pinpoint stood out above the competition. We wanted the ability to customize the site and design project pages to our exact needs, and the range of content and engagement tools within the platform is amazing!”
In 2023, the Municipality launched Clarington Connected—a feature-rich, user-friendly website powered by Social Pinpoint designed to inform, engage, and serve their community. Since its debut, they’ve launched eight projects and attracted over 26,000 visits to their site!
The Approach
Clarington customized their engagement site to match the Municipality’s branding, creating a visually appealing and recognizable platform that builds trust with residents.
The site supports 11 languages and features three project categories—completed projects, those in progress, and initiatives seeking community feedback—organized using the Feature Grid tool to streamline user experience and site navigation.
For each project, the team leverages Social Pinpoint’s extensive (and growing!) library of nine engagement tools and 30 content tools, customizing their approach to fit the project’s specific objectives, needs, and lifecycle stage.
For example, Clarington’s Bowmanville Community Park project—an initiative to transform 34 acres of former Bowmanville Zoo land into a new park—leveraged the Hotspot tool to gather feedback on the initial park concept design. This tool allowed residents to visualize the proposed layout, click on animated hotspots for more details, and drop pins on the design to share their opinions and suggest additional ideas. The interactive Hotspot tool was particularly effective for this project because it enabled residents to engage directly with the design and provide detailed, location-specific feedback.
In the Active Transportation Master Plan, tools like Quick Poll and Visioner were used to collect ideas for improving cycling, walking, and rolling options. The Social Map allowed residents to mark locations where they feel safe or unsafe while cycling, scootering, or wheeling. This tool provided precise feedback on specific locations, and residents could upvote suggestions, giving planners deeper insight into community preferences and concerns.
“Prior to Social Pinpoint, our planners and consultants would have mainly relied on a text-based survey or on-site visits to gauge community needs, which never captured the full picture. The Social Map is great because it allows residents to drop pins on exact locations and suggest improvements, providing a level of specificity that general surveys and on-site visits can’t even come close to matching. This detailed, on-the-ground data is far more reflective of the community’s actual experiences, giving us insight into exactly where improvements are needed and helping us understand the underlying reasons behind our residents’ needs.”
– Melissa Westover, Manager of Communications, Municipality of Clarington
In addition to their online efforts, Melissa and Leanne emphasized the importance of a strong hybrid approach to community engagement. To drive traffic to their platform, the Municipality uses social media and targeted ads. The Clarington Connected newsletter is mailed to every household to help supplement the loss of the local newspaper, and in-person public meetings are still held for those who prefer face-to-face interaction.
Clarington also engages residents through local Facebook community groups, each specific to Clarington’s urban centers and hamlets, with thousands of active members. Additionally, in-person kiosks set up in local recreation facilities have been successful in providing residents with easy ways to give feedback as they pass by.
The Results
Clarington has made a remarkable shift from one-sided information sharing and limited engagement at in-person meetings—where attendance sometimes fell to just one person—to actively engaging thousands online through a centralized platform. Their efforts are not only driving impressive numbers but also creating meaningful change, building trust, and fostering a more engaged community!
The Heart Your Parks Clarington project, for example, invited residents to share photos, videos, or stories about their favorite parks, trails, sports fields, or outdoor spaces using the Gather tool. This seemingly lighthearted initiative played a crucial role in educating the community about recent legislative changes that impacted parkland dedication for new developments.
In terms of participation, Leanne shared that “the numbers have been huge!” Since implementing Social Pinpoint, Clarington has received 3,820 contributions online and counting!
Leanne also highlighted the significant cost savings with this approach. “If you think of how many hours and resources go into public meetings only to have one person show up, it’s crazy,” she noted. An online tool allows Clarington to reach a much larger audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional public meetings, which require substantial time and resources.
Melissa mentioned:
We’ve heard positive feedback from consultants and other municipalities about Clarington’s use of Social Pinpoint’s capabilities. Since launching Clarington Connected, our projects have seen our highest public engagement levels to date.”
As for the community, Melissa explained:
Clarington is bringing people along for the entire lifecycle of the project. Having our community members weigh in and be part of the decision-making process is so important. We’re committed to coming full circle by showing them how their feedback has been used.”
What’s Next
Looking ahead, Clarington aims to build on its current success by maintaining strong community involvement and engagement through new features and ongoing initiatives.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface,” explained Leanne. “Our goal is to continually engage the community and demonstrate how much we value their feedback. We want residents to actively follow and participate in local projects.”
“Since the launch of Clarington Connected, we’ve achieved our highest levels of public engagement ever, and we aim to maintain this momentum. Building trust takes time, and we’re committed for the long term.”
– Leanne Walker, Marketing and Engagement Supervisor, Municipality of Clarington
