The app for a community or neighborhood meeting
A neighborhood meeting has no budget, no staff and one volunteer holding a clipboard. It also has a room where six people want to speak and forty want a different six people to speak.
A planning figure for a neighborhood association meeting on a live local issue. Note how few dots are billable.
What a volunteer committee is up against
A community meeting app carries the agenda for a neighborhood association, residents' group or community forum, lets attendees submit and upvote questions, and keeps a record of what was raised. event67's free tier covers one live event up to fifty activated attendees with the whole feature set, which is the size most community meetings actually are.
A speaking order the chair can defend
The hardest job in a community meeting is deciding who speaks. Upvoted questions move that decision from the chair to the room. When the chair takes the top question, it is because forty neighbours voted for it, and that is a much easier thing to say out loud than a judgment call.
Notice that actually reaches people
Community groups lose members to missed notices more than to disagreement. Push announcements deep-link to the post, and announcements can be scheduled, so the reminder goes out the evening before whether or not the secretary remembers.
A record without minute-taking
Every question asked, every poll run and every photo submitted stays in the reports archive. It is not minutes and it is not a legal record, but for a volunteer group it is a far better account of a meeting than anyone was going to write by hand.
A budget of nothing
Under fifty activated attendees, one live event costs nothing at all: the whole feature set, the branded theme and bulk invites, with no card and no trial clock. For a residents' association that is the difference between having a tool and not.
A meeting cycle, month by month
Notice
Invite the list you have
A membership spreadsheet or a mailing list, imported as CSV. Invites are branded to the association, unlimited, and free. Delivery tracking per recipient tells you which addresses have gone stale.
Uses announcements and branded invites with delivery tracking.
The week before
Open questions early
This is the change that matters most for a community group. Questions submitted and voted on in advance let the committee prepare answers, which converts a meeting from a complaints session into a working one.
Uses questions and voting.
The meeting
The agenda, in order, with the room's questions attached
Each agenda item is an entry in the schedule with a time and a lead. Questions attach to the item they concern, so the discussion about parking happens under parking.
Uses the agenda.
During
A poll instead of a show of hands
A live poll gives a number in thirty seconds and avoids the argument about whether a show of hands was close. Be plain with the room that this is a sense of the meeting and not a formal vote, because event67 has no balloting.
Uses live polls.
After
Publish what you did not get to
The unanswered questions are already ranked. Posting answers to the top few in the following days is the cheapest possible way for a committee to look responsive, and the list wrote itself.
Uses announcements.
Running a community meeting through the app
Four steps, and the second one is where the value is.
Create the meeting as an event
One event per meeting keeps each month's questions separate, which makes the pattern visible over a year.
Open questions a week ahead
Advance questions with voting give the committee time to prepare an answer rather than improvise one.
Enter the agenda as timed items
With a named lead for each. Questions attach to the item they concern.
Set moderation to moderated, not admin-only
Moderated sequences the queue and keeps the log. Admin-only reads as censorship in a community setting, whatever the intent.
What a 70-resident meeting costs
Seventy residents claim their invite and open the app. Fifty of them are free, so twenty are billable, once, for that meeting.
- activated attendees
- 70activated attendees
- billable, after the first 50 are free
- 20billable, after the first 50 are free
- for the whole event, at $5.00 each
- $100for the whole event, at $5.00 each
A meeting of fifty or fewer activated attendees costs nothing. For most neighborhood associations, that is every meeting.
What a community group will need somewhere else
Most community groups run into one of these within a year, so they are worth knowing in advance.
- No voting, balloting or elections. Live polls are an opinion instrument and must never be presented as a formal vote.
- No membership dues, subscriptions or payments of any kind.
- No streaming, so a meeting broadcast to residents at home runs on a video tool alongside this.
- No anonymous questions. Questions carry the asker's name, which in a small neighbourhood is a real consideration.
- No public listing. The meeting is visible only to people you invite.
Last updated
What it costs
- Free up to 50
- activated attendees, on one live event
- $5
- per activated attendee beyond 50
- $4,750
- the most one event can ever cost, whatever happens past 1,000
Activated means the person claimed their invite and opened the app. Not when you import them, not when the invite is delivered, and not if they register and stay home.
Questions people actually ask
Is it really free for a small association?
One live event with up to fifty activated attendees is free, with the whole feature set, the branded theme and bulk invites, no card and no trial clock. Beyond fifty you pay per activated attendee, and the total for any one meeting is capped.
Can we hold a formal vote in the app?
No. There is no balloting, no proxies and no election management. Live polls read the sense of the room and should be described that way. Formal votes need a governance tool or a show of hands recorded in your minutes.
Can residents ask questions anonymously?
No. Questions are attributed to the person asking. In a neighborhood where people live next door to the people they disagree with, that is worth discussing with your committee before adopting this.
What about residents who will not use an app?
There is a web version with the same agenda and questions, and no meeting should depend on the app. Its real value is the questions collected before the meeting, and those can be read out by the chair for everyone in the room.
Do we need a smartphone for every household?
No. One person per household submitting and voting is how most groups end up using it, and the meeting itself runs as it always did. The app supplements the room rather than replacing it.
Keep reading
Other kinds of event
The features this leans on
Let the room choose the questions
Questions submitted and voted on before the meeting, an agenda everyone can see, and no cost under fifty people.