Equity Focused Engagement
Work with us to maximize your engagement effort and your budget.
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On the Ground is a women owned engagement and outreach consulting firm. We specialize in engaging and collecting feedback from communities historically left out of governmental planning and budgetary processes. Our firm hires and trains members of the community to help with outreach and engagement. We also have an in house team of on-call canvassers and outreach specialists for any size of project.
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On the Ground provides full service engagement planning and execution to local governments, non-profits and political candidates. We believe every aspect of your engagement plan can act as a multiplier. If a project budget includes food, we buy locally first and bring the business into the planning process as a stakeholder. When a public meeting is held in a local church, we work with the leadership to get information out through their networks. Engagement can involve a lot of little moving pieces, that's what we're here to manage.
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We are a registered DBE in North Carolina, and NCDOT pre-qualified vendor for public involvement.
SERVICES
Let us manage your engagement plan, meeting and outreach logistics.
On the Ground outreach
Our staff are available for door to door canvassing, distributing fliers to local businesses and tabling at festivals, parks or other public spaces. We will meet the community where they are.
Survey Administration
We conduct intercept surveys to collect feedback for transportation, parks, housing and other planning or budgetary efforts.
Yard Sign Placement
In compliance with local ordinances, locations selected using census data.
Peer to Peer Outreach
We recruit and hire local members of the community to help with outreach and engagement efforts.
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Engagement Planning
We can help identify your engagement goals, and craft a plan to fit your budget.
Hybrid Meeting Coordination
Venue rental focused on locally (where possible), ADA accessible meeitng spaces. A/V coordination to help meet your event goals. Room setup and breakdown.
OUR TEAM
Knocking on doors.
Principal
Sara has more than six years of experience in planning and local government, and more than ten years of experience with community and grassroots engagement. She holds a master's of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She got her start in engagement work co-managing a neighborhood led redevelopment effort of a community garden. Since then, she's worked in private sector planning, non-profit management and wants to increase the diversity of response rates on municipal planning and budgetary surveys.
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Sara helped develop the City of Raleigh Planning and Development Department's first program to pay community members to help with outreach in 2021. She started On the Ground Consulting in 2022 with the idea that listening and talking directly to impacted communities can result in better outcomes for everyone.
Director of Engagement
Alexandria Webb migrated from South Eastern North Carolina to the Triangle to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since attending she has found herself celebrating her body, life, and spirit by using the art of Drag as revolutionary trans leaders have done in the past. She has organized communities in the triangle as an advocate for black trans lives, police reform, and to elect candidates that understand how important it is to not only protect but enrich LGBTQIA+ lives.
As a black/indigenous woman of trans experience from the Tuscarora tribe, she wants to use her life and experiences as a communal healer to break generational curses and teach the revolutionary act of loving on oneself as a daily practice. In addition to that, she has skills in community engagement that she uses for outreach to build sustainable community relationships.
Canvasser
Fluent in Spanish
Amethyst is a BIPOC female originally from Mexico. She grew up in the RDU area and come from a very humble upbringing in a Mexican, immigrant family. Currently, she lives in Lillington because she couldn't keep up with the rent in the Triangle so she relocated to the country. During her free time, she likes to create costume pieces, cook and play with her baby.
She is passionate about outreach work because she believes no one should be in the dark about neighborhood changes. Our community is beautiful and diverse, which means it's important to use different tools to keep them informed. Rents have been rising as Cities grow and governments invest in them, so we need to keep people informed about the changes.
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She believes knowledge is power and preparation is critical.
On the Ground Consulting is a proud member of The Amalgamation, an ecosystem of small businesses fostering equitable partnerships in government contracting.
