Who We Are: Go Vocal Edition

Lora Botev, Regional Manager at Go Vocal, tells us about the organisation’s work with local authorities and the partnerships it has developed to build better outcomes for residents.

In a sentence, what does your organisation do?

Our digital participation platform is a seamless, one-stop shop for collecting and analysing public input. We work with 600+ local governments and organisations around the world, including Lambeth, Newham and Cambridge Councils in the UK, plus organisations like the NHS and the RSPCA.

What does community power mean to your organisation?

Our mission is to make local democracy more inclusive, participatory, and responsive. We love seeing local governments and organisations use our community engagement tools to share decision-making power with the people they serve.

Can you give us an example of something you’ve done recently that you’re proud of?

Last year, we supported the NHS to run the largest-ever national conversation on its future, inviting public engagement on its 10-year plan. Alongside our partners at Thinks Insight, we hosted their digital engagement platform where more than 270,000 patients, staff and partners had their say on their future of our national health service. In total, 1.7 million people visited the engagement platform.

But for us it’s not just about the big flagship projects. It’s mostly about our ability to support councils and residents shape local decision-making one council at a time, to scale that and see participation being adopted across the board.

Seeing the collective impact of all the individual engagement projects across the 41 local authorities we work with in the UK, and what that means for resident engagement as a whole.

What could other members and annual partners learn from you?

We develop our product collaboratively, in partnership with the councils we work with, so we’re able to respond directly to their needs. One recent example of this was when Havant Borough Council was a recipient of the Proptech Engagement Fund – we’re able to leverage funding opportunities like this to codesign features with local governments.

We’re about to celebrate our 10th birthday, but we remain founder-led, which keeps us close to the market and the values that led our founders to start Go Vocal in the first place: making local democracy more participatory, inclusive, and responsive.

Is there anything you’re particularly keen to learn from our member councils or annual partners?

We’re always keen for conversations with local councils to ensure we stay abreast of their challenges, keep learning from their processes, and keep developing in ways that serve their needs.

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Photo credit: photos from one of Bridges Outcomes Partnerships’ (BOP) social prescribing programmes, Thrive Northeast Lincolnshire.

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