We're so excited to announce the winners of the 13th Annual Granicus Digital Government Awards.
These winners have embraced modern technologies that drive awareness of community programs, improve resident experiences, transform outdated processes, and inspire civic action. Winners were selected by an internal Granicus advisory board and were evaluated based on a number of criteria including: government efficiency and effectiveness, program performance, customer satisfaction, and overall customer experience.
Tech Trailblazer Award
Local: Coquitlam, British Columbia
Moving from a manual system of email and Excel to a new process of storing data in the Granicus AMANDA tool reduced the city of Coquitlam's processing time by up to 20 hours per cycle — approximately 6,600 hours per year!
State: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Wolf management is an important topic for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, but preparing for and conducting the in-person public meetings was resource intensive and reached a narrow spectrum of Minnesotans. The team implemented Engagement HQ, and participation in the wolf plan update was widely accessible for the first time ever, generating more than 4,500 responses.
Innovator of the Year Award
Marlin McDaniel, Jefferson County, CO
Marlin McDaniel founded and manages the Resilient Jeffco program, leading a team of innovation analysts and interns. The program focuses on innovative process and technology improvements that result in measurable outcomes for county departments and their customers. Marlin's projects have saved millions of dollars, improved service quality, and created efficiencies that help deliver an exceptional digital customer experience to residents.
Website of the Year Award
Village of Orland Park
Orland Park, Illinois, implemented the rule of three when developing their new website. Information should be no more than three clicks from the homepage, what once required and in-person visit should now take under three minutes to do online, and the most popular information should be findable in three different ways. Today, the Village's website is exactly what the team set out to achieve: A visually appealing, user-friendly, and streamlined site that is a natural extension of the Village services and style.
STR Compliance Award
Washoe County
Washoe County's STR Ordinance has become a model of fairness and innovation among differing opinions in this new emerging shared economy. The County took a multiphase approach to research, plan, and adopt an ordinance, incorporating extensive public engagement into the process.
Digital Efficiency Award
Lewisville Municipal Court
In the past year, the Lewisville Municipal Court has launched a host of online tools to court users to answer their questions, provide instructions, and offer defendants the opportunity to resolve their cases in a more convenient and efficient manner. A new website, online forms, digital workflows, an online courtroom, live chat, and text messaging were just a few of the digital improvements that allowed the court to take huge steps toward accomplishing its mission.
Difference Maker Award
Local: Madera County Department of Public Health, CA
Over the course of the pandemic, Madera County developed an entire subsite for COVID-19 information to inform the media and protect the public, including two GIS dashboards for case and vaccination information. The public could leave information or ask questions via a community feedback form, helpful when the county’s phone system was so inundated with calls, and businesses could report outbreaks to the contact tracing team. The Communications Team also received several grants for messaging campaigns that brought attention to the website.
State: Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality launched a podcast, GreenState, with a three-part series about wildfire smoke. GreenState goes far beyond a press release, diving deep into environmental topics of interest in Oregon. Each episode averages 250 listeners, and the audience keeps growing.
Digital Government Experience Award
Local: Carlsbad, CA
The City of Carlsbad's Automation, Compliance, Tracking, Inspection and Owner Notification (ACTION) System is an innovative, comprehensive asset management platform that improves data collection, increases the City's ability to respond to public inquiries, decreases staff time, reduces paper documentation, streamlines compliance tracking, and creates better situational awareness between the City, TCBMP community, and regulatory agencies.
Federal: National Cemetery Administration
The Veterans Legacy Memorial is the only online memorial that honors 4.3+ million Veterans with an interactive memorial page for each Veteran. VLM is a Federal/State/Tribal partnership led by NCA that currently includes more than 280 cemeteries. More than 31,000 pieces of content have been posted to Veteran pages, allowing their legacies to extend beyond the borders of those physical cemeteries. The outpouring of emotions from VLM users – grief, laughter, memories, historical facts, and more contribute to the unique storytelling of those patriots we've loved and lost.
Communications Resilience Award
HHS, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Health Workforce, Division of External Affairs, Internal Communications Team
When internal communications was identified as a KPI for the Bureau of Health Workforce, the Division of External Affairs was tasked with overhauling and consolidating communications. The resulting BHW Vitals weekly e-newsletter is a timely, informative, and easy to scan resource with key bureau and agency updates. Since its launch, it has received overwhelmingly positive feedback, high engagement, and a weekly average open rate of over 70%.
Digital Communications Innovator of the Year Award
Food and Drug Administration CDER hand sanitizer campaign
During the COVID-19 public health emergency, the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Office of Communications, Division of Drug Information, used social media listening to determine knowledge gaps and areas of misinformation related to hand sanitizers. Staff used that information to create posts and develop stories, quizzes, and other engaging formats to educate the public and serve as a trusted source of truth in the midst of pandemic over-information.
DHS S&T Office of Industry Partnerships
The mission of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Industry Partnerships is to engage industry and facilitate partnerships with private sector innovators to advance commercial technology solutions that address homeland security challenges. In the face of the pandemic, Industry Partnerships proactively shifted in-person events to digital platforms, producing an 11-month webinar series called "Insights Outreach" and began engaging under-represented private sector organizations and other industry associations through webinars, targeted email promotion, and an enhanced social media presence.
