Beyond Citizen Engagement: Involving the Public in Co-Delivering Government Services

The Obama Administration’s 2009 Open Government initiative sparked innovative ways of engaging the public in government. But engagement for engagement’s sake has not been an end goal.  Trends in both the public and private sector, in the U.S. and around the world, have been to leverage new technologies available to create meaningful dialogue and relationships between citizens and their government.

This report describes the evolution of the concept of “co-delivering” government services by engaging individuals to participate in the development, production, and delivery of services.  For example, the National Archives and Records Administration has created the new role of “citizen archivist” where individuals can help transcribe Civil War letters so they can be read on the Web. 

The authors go beyond documenting a new phenomenon.  Drs. Kannan and Chang have also developed a guide of issues and practices for public leaders to use to determine if programs, information, or services they provide could benefit from the use of co-delivery principles.