City of Poughkeepsie: Community-Driven Revitalization
Community-centered engagement that secured $10M in Downtown Revitalization funding
Grant Secured
English & Spanish
Engagement Strategy
The client
About Poughkeepsie
Located in New York's Hudson Valley along the banks of the Hudson River, Poughkeepsie has long held the ambition to transform its downtown into a more vibrant, inclusive, and economically vital place — but securing the $10M in state funding to do it meant first doing something harder: genuinely understanding what the community wanted.
The challenge
Authentic Community Input for a Major Grant Application
In 2025, the City of Poughkeepsie was applying for New York State's $10M Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant — and they knew their application would be stronger with proof of broad community support.
That meant going beyond the usual focus groups and reaching all constituencies, including Spanish-speaking residents, who make up 25% of the city's population. But past experience had shown that form-based surveys couldn't capture what residents truly felt, and deeper qualitative methods were too resource-intensive for staff to manage at scale.
They needed a way to gather authentic, bilingual feedback — without it consuming the team.
The solution
Multi-Channel Bilingual Engagement
Poughkeepsie used Jotto to gather community opinions at different touch points. Jotto's frictionless, mobile-friendly way to provide and collect text and video made it easy for participants to engage in their preferred language.
Ask
Residents were invited to share which six priority projects mattered most to them — via video or text, in English or Spanish.
Analyze
Jotto automatically sorted bilingual responses and applied real-time AI sentiment analysis to surface what residents valued most.
Activate
A live results dashboard gave city officials a transparent, shareable view of community priorities — ready for both public meetings and the grant application itself.
The results
Comprehensive Community Insights That Won the Grant
Community input wasn't just a checkbox — it was the deciding factor. Poughkeepsie's commitment to reaching every constituency made for a stronger application and a more trustworthy process.
Diverse voices, real responses
Nearly 50% of feedback came in as video — genuine, unscripted enthusiasm from residents across the city, in both English and Spanish.
Clear community priorities
A baseline poll combined with six follow-up questions gave the city a rich, data-informed picture of what mattered most to each constituency.
Real-time insight
Jotto's live dashboard let the city team track priorities as responses came in — and use that intelligence to shape future community touchpoints.
$10M granted
Poughkeepsie won the Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant — with documented, widespread community buy-in as proof. Those six priorities are now being built.
Hear what your residents actually think
Get in touch to see how Jotto can work for you