At NowKalamazoo and the Local Journalism Foundation, we treat civic participation as both demand-generation for journalism and a journalistic outcome. These two programs were designed to address a recurring problem in local news: many residents lack meaningful, first-hand experience with public institutions and decision-making, which limits both their appetite for and ability to use journalism. Town Hall Field Trips and our community Voters Forums are participatory journalism formats that combine reporting, facilitation, and civic orientation.
Town Hall Field Trips
We launched this experimental event series in late 2024 as part of NowKalamazoo’s programming for U.S. Democracy Day. The idea is simple: Maybe more residents would attend a local government meeting if they knew they’d be accompanied by a group of fellow curious citizens.
Our hypothesis proved true. Many community members confided in us that they had always wanted to attend a meeting, but that they were intimidated, embarrassed, or just never made the time – and our event gave them just the invitation they needed.
Our experiment turned into a monthly event series the following year. Each month, we visited a different local government commission or board. We provide participants with advance information on the agenda and what to expect. At the meeting, we give them an orientation to the meeting protocols, background on the elected officials and government staff, and discuss the issues at play. We brief them on Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, and we provide a “civic checklist” to rate the meeting, as well as a “vote tracker” to take notes on officials’ decisions. Many meetings also featured a “special guest,” such as an experienced reporter, concerned resident, or public official, who can answer questions and share additional perspective.
Among our goals with this program, we hope to make it more likely that residents attend public meetings again on their own, that they invite friends and family to join them, and that they feel more confident about the process of local government.
And with what we have learned in 2025, we’re continuing to iterate on this program with a goal of engaging twice as many residents this year.
Voters Forum
Election events traditionally center candidates for office. They stump or debate, and occasionally they take questions from voters. At NowKalamazoo, we take a different approach that puts the spotlight on voters. So when it came time to determine how we would report on local government and the 2024 election, we organized an event to inspire voters to tell us.
The goal of our Voters Forum was to solicit input for a “People’s Agenda” – a compilation of the issues and solutions that voters want to see their elected officials working on. We invited the community to an event that would challenge them to put these “wants” and “worries” into words.
While the event included a live DJ and catered food, the central activity revolved around six “conversation stations” dedicated to different issues and topics such as gun violence, education, and housing.
Each conversation was facilitated by a local resident volunteer, selected for their professional expertise in the subject area. Our instruction kit for participants encouraged them to join each conversation, to listen to their neighbors, to share their story, and to work to articulate what they wanted their government representatives to focus on.
We partnered with a local artist who converted two antique doors into message boards to collect voters’ sentiments. Each forum participant was given a set of index cards on which they wrote their “wants” and “worries” for this election.
We’ve taken the policies, goals, and requests voters described and synthesized them into our editorial guidance for covering local government. And we continue to adapt this “People’s Agenda” as the community’s priorities evolve. In 2026, we’ll repeat this process for a major update, increasing our effort to solicit input from all corners of our county.
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