Community engagement software for governments, agencies and consultants

Community engagement you can stand behind

A consistent process for planning, delivering and reporting on every engagement project, with AI-assisted best-practice guidance and a defensible record of how community input shaped each decision.

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Find your starting point

The right next step for your engagement practice, wherever you are starting from.

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Trusted by government clients and engagement consultancies, grounded in best practice

How it works

Community engagement software that puts a clear process and best practice into every project

CE Canvas is AI community engagement software for councils, municipalities, government agencies and engagement consultants. It helps teams run consistent, defensible engagement, with or without an adopted engagement strategy, policy or framework.

See each stage in the product

The CE Canvas AI assistant is what makes this AI community engagement software: it analyzes submissions, drafts engagement plans and what-we-heard reports, and audits strategies and frameworks, citing the source for every finding. Staff decide. Responsible AI

The six-stage community engagement process

  1. Context

    Define the decision, what is open to influence and the constraints

    See this stage

  2. Plan

    Write the engagement plan: objectives, stakeholders, level and methods

    See this stage

  3. Deliver

    Run activities online and in person, with the evidence in one place

    See this stage

  4. Understand

    AI turns what you heard into themes and findings, each traced to its source

    See this stage

  5. Report back

    Close the loop with a what-we-heard report for community and decision-makers

    See this stage

  6. Learn

    Evaluate, and carry lessons and community insight into the next project

    See this stage

Why it matters

From fragmented engagement to defensible community engagement

When plans, feedback, approvals and analysis live in different places, no one can show how input shaped the decision.

  1. 1

    What was open to influence and what was already decided, stated before engagement started.

  2. 2

    Who you set out to involve including the groups usually missed, and what you did to reach them.

  3. 3

    How methods were chosen and who approved the level of engagement and the plan.

  4. 4

    What you heard with every theme traceable to the submissions and conversations behind it.

  5. 5

    How you interpreted it what carried weight, what did not, and why.

  6. 6

    How it affected the decision reported back to participants and to the decision-makers.

What defensible community engagement means

Where are you today?

Where is your engagement practice today?

Whether you are starting without an engagement strategy, already collecting feedback through online engagement tools like EngagementHQ, Social Pinpoint (now Social Point by Open Point) or PublicInput, or putting an existing strategy into practice, CE Canvas meets you where you are. Online engagement tools collect input. CE Canvas provides the consistent process behind planning, delivering and reporting on engagement.

An engagement officer at her desk in a council office, looking up from a printed engagement strategy with a warm smile

For public organizations

Building your engagement approach

You value engagement but have no strategy, framework or shared process yet.

Explore this path

For public organizations

Connecting your online engagement tools

You use online engagement tools such as an engagement platform, SurveyMonkey, website forms or spreadsheets, but the internal work is disconnected.

Explore this path

For public organizations

Improving established engagement practice

You have a framework, policy or established way of working.

Explore this path

For engagement consultants

For consultants

You manage engagement for multiple clients and need an efficient, consistent and defensible delivery environment that respects your approach.

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Engagement practice

Grounded in community engagement practice

Residents of different ages placing sticky notes on a printed neighbourhood map at a community workshop, one turned toward the camera

CE Canvas is built on the practice IAP2 and engagement practitioners teach. The guides are where our thinking lives.

Start with something useful

A free strategy and framework audit, a workflow review, or the framework builder

Each one produces something your organization keeps, whatever you decide about CE Canvas.

Diagnose practice

Free Engagement Strategy and Framework Audit

Upload your engagement strategy, policy, framework or public participation plan. CE Canvas reviews it against a fixed rubric and shows where staff would still be guessing.

Audit your strategy or framework

Diagnose workflow

Engagement Workflow Review

A structured look at how feedback moves from your collection tools into planning, governance, evidence and reporting, and where it stalls.

Review your workflow

Create the foundation

Engagement Strategy and Framework Builder

Create or substantially renew an engagement strategy, framework and implementation playbook your whole organization or department can apply.

Build your strategy and framework

Evaluate delivery

Consultant Demonstration

See CE Canvas run a representative client engagement end to end, using your methodology rather than replacing it.

Book a consultant demo

Questions

Common questions about CE Canvas

Pricing and procurement questions and security, AI and data questions are answered on their own pages.

What is CE Canvas?

CE Canvas is AI community engagement software for governments, public agencies and engagement consultants. Every project is planned, delivered, analyzed and reported back from one record, following a consistent process grounded in engagement best practice, so staff work the same way and decision-makers can see the evidence. Where an organization has a community engagement strategy, policy or framework, CE Canvas puts it into practice on every project.

Do we need an engagement policy or framework to use CE Canvas?

No. Start with a consistent process grounded in engagement best practice. If you have a policy, strategy or framework, CE Canvas helps your team put it into practice.

Can we use CE Canvas on one project before committing?

Yes. The guided pilot is a fixed-fee, time-limited engagement on one real project, with success measures agreed before it starts and a close-out report at the end.

How a guided pilot works
How long does it take to get started?

A guided pilot starts with your strategy or framework configured and your team enabled, and runs on one real project over a set period. Most teams are planning their first project in the first week.

Does CE Canvas replace our online engagement tools?

No. Online engagement tools such as EngagementHQ, Social Pinpoint (now Social Point by Open Point), Go Vocal, PublicInput and SurveyMonkey collect participation. CE Canvas is the practice layer behind them: planning, governance, stakeholder mapping, analysis and report-back. You keep your platform and connect it.

How does CE Canvas use AI, and is our data used to train models?

The CE Canvas AI assistant drafts engagement plans, analyzes submissions and audits strategies and frameworks, citing the source for every finding. Staff decide. Your documents are not used to train models and are deleted on request.

Responsible AI and data handling
How is CE Canvas priced?

Three ways: a fixed-fee guided pilot on one real project, an annual subscription priced by organization size and users, and a consultant workspace. Tell us your organization type, size and project volume and we send an indicative figure.

See pricing and request a figure

Not sure where to start?

Up to four questions. No form. A recommended path and next step for your situation.

Find your starting pointSee how CE Canvas works