River Rally 2026

Have you ever been told that community engagement is outside your scope? In this interactive session, city and community representatives from Austin, Texas will share their experience creating and sustaining Rain to River, an equity and community-centered planning process. This session explores the very real benefits of effective engagement and will tackle questions like: “How can we design our engagement efforts to bring value to participants and avoid contributing to ‘engagement fatigue’-- especially among historically marginalized groups?” and “What does meaningful retention and engagement look and feel like across multi-year municipal planning processes?” Participants will leave with actionable insights into this strengths-based approach to holistic community planning.