The Engagement Design Studio
Expert process design for the engagement your team will deliver.
The Problem
Community and stakeholder engagement often underperforms, not because the people running it don't care, but because the process itself wasn't designed with enough intentionality. Generic survey-and-open-house formats produce low participation and surface-level input. Good engagement starts with good design, and that's a skill most organizations don't have in house.
What It Is
The Engagement Design Studio is a design-only offering for organizations that have the internal capacity to run engagement but need expert help designing the process. Intelligent Futures brings its facilitation and systems expertise to bear on your context, then hands off a fully designed engagement process, complete with the tools and guidance your team needs to deliver it well.
Who Is This For?
Your team has the people, the relationships, and the community trust to run the engagement. What you need is a design partner with the experience, creativity, and methodological depth to navigate complex issues and get to clarity, so your team can deliver with confidence.
The Engagement Design Studio is for organizations with internal capacity to deliver, but where the stakes are too high to rely on a process that was not built with enough intentionality. Municipalities running community consultation, associations engaging their membership, nonprofits with dedicated community staff: these organizations invest significant time and effort in engagement delivery. The design is what determines whether that investment produces genuine insight or just goes through the motions.
What You Receive
Engagement Process Map: A clear, sequenced design of your full engagement: how many touchpoints, what format each takes, how they connect, and what inputs each one needs to produce.
Facilitation Guides: A ready-to-use guide for each engagement session: step-by-step flow, activity instructions, timing, and facilitation notes your team can follow with confidence.
Delivery Coaching Session: A hands-on walkthrough with your team before engagement begins, so whoever is running it understands the design intent, knows how to handle common challenges, and is genuinely prepared to deliver.