The National Conference on Citizenship hosted a webinar on Monday, August 1, 2011 entitled, “Visualizing Civic Health: Maximizing Impact through Infographics.” We would like to thank all the participants of the webinar for their time and interest in infographics as they relate to civic data.

Infographics are visual representations of data and appeal to the senses, modern citizen’s attention span, and your organization’s budget. They allow people to quickly and effectively disseminate large and complex amounts of information through many avenues.

During the webinar, participants learned about infographics and how they can be an avenue to not only spread messages to large audiences but channel numbers/statistics into stories and actions. Infographics can be a tool for nonprofits and community leaders to inform civic connectedness, maintain engagement, and generate dialogue among community stakeholders. They are also timely and cost-effective.

Citizens are unfading community assets that should be well utilized. NCoC believes that exploring the civic needs of our communities is the first step in developing action strategies to address our common challenges. Tools like infographics can be the first step in guiding this process.

We have updated this page to provide an avenue to continue the discussion both for participants of the webinar and interested individuals just joining the conversation. We included responses to some questions raised on the webinar below. We encourage you to explore the content provided on this page, including a video version of our “Visualizing Civic Health” presentation.

If you are interested in learning more about infographics, and how you can use them to tell your civic health story, please contact NCoC’s Chief Program Officer, Kristen Cambell at kcambell(at)ncoc(dot)net.


The following is a sample of questions raised during the Webinar. Feel free to continue the conversation by adding yours below.

Does it make sense to use infographic only if you have completed a CHI in the past? Not necessarily. The CHI infographic serves the interests of partners who have either created or have expressed interest in creating a civic health index report. It is a sound investment, whether you have already released a report or not.
• If you have an existing report: you can use the infographic to garner a wider audience’s attention, continue conversations, and then direct them to your CHI product should they be interested for more information.
• If you don’t have an existing report: you can use the infographic to garner a support as an onramp to a larger civic research strategy. It can seed interest and conversations among your stakeholders and help you recruit partners. Should you choose to eventually release a report, you now have an engaged and diverse audience to market towards.

How has the infographic aligned with social studies curricula in partner communities to be used in schools? This is the first year we are promoting infographics, so we don’t have specific examples to date. We see the infographics being able to be integrated into curriculum in lots of interesting ways to engage students in talking about communities and public life.

To what extent is the content for the infographic customizable for a community? Could one community focus on participation in government engagement while another focuses on community service, etc.? One of the major appeals of the infographic is that it is highly customizable and can be designed to fit your messaging and your audience. It also has the capability of appealing to multiple target audiences, demonstrating both its financial viability and its versatility with people who may not have been engaged otherwise. The infographic can also be customized to serve different audiences in different venues, such as at conference presentations or booths, on television and broadcast, or as online media.

Is there a measure of people who participated in a deliberative dialogue? There are a number of questions that relate to deliberative dialogue processes, including “working with neighbors to fix or improve something,” “attending meetings where public issues are discussed,” and “addressing community issues.” These can be combined and highlighted to help focus on deliberative dialogue and democracy processes.

What was the study that informed your initial infographics work? Context for our “Visualizing Civic Health” presentation was provided through our conversations with partners, as well as a number of papers on infographics.

“Case Study: How We Got a Link from CNN…” Written by Ken Lyons, Wordstream.com

“Infographics as Marketing Strategy” Written by Debbie Hemley, Social Media Today

Visualizing Information for Advocacy – an introduction to information design. Written and designed by John Emerson, Principal at Apperceptive LLC.

Can I find this presentation online? Yes, it is embedded above and posted on our YouTube page.

What goes in to be the cost? What do you get in the end? The cost for an infographic is between $10,000-$15,000 baseline costs. This includes graphic design, topline research support, project management, and in some cases, media support. NCoC will work with partners on creating a customized package specific to partners’ objectives. Feel free to contact Kristen Cambell to learn more: kcambell(at)ncoc(dot)net