Blockwise Onboarding EE + AM

Why do we run Blockwise surveys?

Description
Zencity's Blockwise survey is a recurring survey that helps law enforcement agencies measure their community's sense of safety and trust in policing — over time and against a cohort of similar agencies. It measures resident sentiment across four key aspects: Safety, Fairness, Respect, and Voice. Agencies can also use the survey's add-on and custom question options to focus in on issues specific to their community, such as homelessness or drone use. It's built around three core principles:

Timely
Zencity's digital distribution reaches residents where they already are — on their phones, tablets, and other devices — instead of relying on slower traditional methods like phone or mail surveys. That speed matters for a police department: it means leadership gets a current read on community trust and safety perceptions quickly, and can respond to emerging concerns while they're still relevant, rather than acting on sentiment that's already months old by the time it's collected and processed.

Recurring
Rather than a one-off snapshot, Blockwise is fielded on an ongoing cadence — typically monthly or quarterly — tailored to each agency. This means departments aren't just capturing a single moment in time; they're building a trend line across the Safety, Fairness, Respect, and Voice measures, seeing whether trust is improving, declining, or holding steady, and can swap in a custom question each cycle as new priorities surface in the community.

Benchmarked
Results aren't just informative in isolation — they're contextualized. Zencity Benchmarking compares an agency's scores to peer communities with similar demographics, population size, and characteristics (currently U.S. clients only), so agencies can tell whether a given score is genuinely strong or weak relative to comparable places, not just relative to their own history.

Blockwise Survey Questionnaire Structure - TO UPDATE

Important Links

Client Facing Template

Community Survey Workflow Overview - TO UPDATE

Workflow

New client closed!

New client with a CS part of their contract

Fill in "Survey Request" form

On Monday

As soon as you know a client has a community survey coming up, fill in the Survey Request form on Monday. This automatically opens a task for the survey. At this stage, you only need the basics: Client name Cadence Population size Languages Shapefiles or any other documents the client has shared If you've picked up additional context — from the AE, from a client call, or anywhere else — add it here too. This form is our source of truth for the survey's context, so include anything you think could be relevant later.

Survey Ops Shares CS Template

Before drafting begins

Only use and distribute to the client the template that Survey Ops shares. We need to use the templated version so that we can benchmark properly and avoid any mishaps.

Ad Image Approval

EE sign-off is required before ad images go live — client-submitted photos must clear methodology review first.

Distribution shares ad images for approval. The EE needs to get sign-off on these before launch — if approval isn't given in time, Distribution will move forward with the images they originally shared. If the client wants to use specific photos of their own, these must first go through methodology requirements before they're approved for use.

Confirm Geographic Subdivisions with Survey Ops

Survey Ops has final approval

Most clients will have a sense of the divisions they want, but Survey Ops will ultimately approve them based on sample size and expected responses per subdivision

Share and Review Survey with Client

Change Monday status to "Drafting"

Review the survey with the client. Explain the parts of the survey that can't be changed (and why), and what they can adjust. Understand the client's research questions or strategic plan, and how we can use the follow-up and rotating questions to support this.

Send the Client the Survey for Review

Change Monday status to "Questionnaire Review"

Once you've drafted the questions based on the client's request and sent them back to the client, change the Monday status to "Questionnaire Review."

Confirm Timeline with Client + Survey Ops

Approved at least by the 15th of the month before launch

Confirm the survey timeline with both the client and Survey Ops, making sure it's approved no later than the 15th of the month prior to launch.

Survey Approved — Move to Setup

Change Monday status to "In Setup"

Once the client has approved the survey, change the Monday status to "In Setup."

Survey Operations Sets Up Survey + Distribution Begins Distributing Survey

Handoff from EE approval to Survey Ops and Distribution

Once the EE gives approval, Survey Ops will set up the survey on the platform, and Distribution will begin distributing it. Distribution will update Monday once the survey is in the field.

BW reports creation - TO UPDATE

Monday board explanation - https://zencity-hq.monday.com/docs/18403861074

Adding value through blockwise - examples

Example Reports

Here we have attached a few example of different community survey reports and the differerent ways we can use the report to add value. For any more details please reach out to an EE!

Performance Management - Pasco County Community Survey Report - Strategic Plan (ENT, within platform)

This is an example of a community survey and questionnaire aligned to Pasco County's Strategic Plan — showing how survey data can map directly onto the goals and metrics a county is already tracking. Rather than sitting apart as a one-off report, it becomes part of the county's existing performance management process, giving leaders defensible, resident-informed evidence to bring into planning and reporting cycles.

Strategic Initiatives - City of Boston Community Survey Report (ENT, out of platform, still relevant)

This is an example of a community survey report created for the City of Boston. While some elements of this report were created outside the platform, it highlights a potential way to utilize CS work to support a strategic initiative. On slide 24, the report shows that satisfaction with affordable housing increased. That finding becomes much more valuable when it's read alongside what's actually happening in local government — in this case, Boston had been running a series of affordable housing initiatives around the same period (slide 25). We can't say one caused the other, but we can provide context for the findings we're seeing based on what's going on in the city.

Budget Planning - Ventura, CA (MM, within platform)

During budget planning, city leaders can start with the Community Characteristics section to see where residents are least satisfied — in Ventura's case, affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage, and overall cleanliness and maintenance. The Priority Matrix then shows which of these actually drives quality of life: jobs that pay a living wage lands in "High Impact Challenges," low satisfaction and high impact, making it a strong candidate for budget attention. The Change Matrix shows this isn't stable — satisfaction dropped 5 points citywide, concentrated among Hispanic/Latino residents (-16%), residents aged 18-34 (-27%), and District 7 (-19%) — giving leaders a clear place to focus, down to the district level, before finalizing allocation decisions.

Budget Planning + Strategic Planning - Houston, TX ( ENT, within platform)

Like Ventura, Houston used its Community Survey for budget planning, adding a follow-up question that asked residents directly: if the city had to stop funding something, what should it be? This gives leaders representative data on residents' actual priorities — something standard survey ratings alone can't surface. Houston also used follow-up questions during a crisis response: after public pushback over closed bike lanes, the city needed to know whether the reaction reflected a vocal minority or broader resident sentiment, and how people were actually getting around. The Community Survey gave an initial read, and a follow-up Pulse survey went deeper on the topic — giving leaders defensible evidence to act on.