Collecting Residents' proposals and petitions
Unlike standard ideation projects, proposals and petitions are bottom-up contributions initiated by citizens themselves.
Citizens can submit proposals at any time.
Proposals gather support via votes and/or cosponsors.
When proposals meet the defined threshold, they receive an official response.
This method helps governments track what citizens find important, fill policy gaps, and strengthen participatory democracy.
Communication on proposals/petitions
Reaching the threshold signals a promise between residents and your organization. To maintain credibility:
Communicate expectations in the project description
Ensure resources (time, staff, budget) are available to follow through
Balance ambition with feasibility
Determine how you will follow up with resident proposals. Some examples include:
Invite author(s) to present at a council meeting
Provide advice or refer internally to the right department
Offer financial or communicational support based on your insights
Platform context:
Use statuses (e.g., Threshold Reached, Answered) and official updates in the Input Manager so supporters see, and are notified of, next steps.
How to set up a proposal/petition?
Enable proposals and petitions
Create a new project and name it for example: “Proposals” or “Petitions”
In the Setup phase, select Proposals, petitions, or initiatives as the participation method
Customize the description to explain goals, rules, and submission criteria
Define eligibility criteria
Eligibility criteria help filter relevant proposals. Common criteria:
Within local government competences
Serves common interest, not personal gain
Non-discriminatory and non-harmful
Feasible within budget and timing
Not already covered by an existing plan or duplicate of another proposal
Communicate these criteria in the project description.
Voting tresholds and limits
Define the conditions under which a proposal qualifies for response.
Voting threshold: often 1–3% of the population
Days to reach threshold: typically ~90 days (balance between urgency and opportunity)
Configure participation options
User anonymity: Hide participant identity if allowed
Review of proposals: Enable “Require screening of inputs” to approve before publishing
Cosponsorship: Require cosponsors for legitimacy. Cosponsors must be invited and accept before the proposal goes public
Set up the input form
Customize the submission form for proposals:
Default question “Title” is mandatory
Description question is recommended
Cosponsorship and anonymity fields appear if enabled
Use multiple pages and an end page to provide process information
Similar Input Detection can be enabled to reduce duplicates
Proposal statuses
Use statuses to communicate progress and manage proposals internally. We separate automatic and manual statuses depending on how you configured your project, see below the differences of each status and what they mean
Automatic statuses:
Proposed: published, gathering support
Expired: didn’t reach threshold in time
Threshold Reached: gathered enough support in time
Pre-screening :submitted, awaiting admin approval (if enabled)
Manual statuses:
Ineligible: doesn’t meet criteria, cannot be voted on.
Answered: reached threshold and response is published.
Custom statuses: Create in Platform settings → Input statuses. Define name, color, and function.
How to make your proposals visible?
To emphasize your proposals/petitions you can pin them in the navigation bar and/or highlight them on the homepage.
Navigation bar: Go to Pages & Menu → Add project to navbar.
Homepage: Go to Pages & Menu → Edit Home → Spotlight widget.
How to moderate and manage proposals?
Use the project-level Input Manager to assign, update, and respond to proposals.
Assign default or individual assignees via Project General tab → Access rights or in the Input Manager of the timeline.
Change statuses (automatic or manual). Status changes trigger email notifications for followers.
Add internal comments for private admin discussions.
⚠️ Proposals only appear in project-level Input Manager, not in the platform-level one. You cannot move proposals from phase to phase.