About Connect the Dots

Connect the Dots is an outreach and engagement consulting firm focused on connecting diverse voices to decision-making. We build innovative, meaningful engagement and outreach methods to elevate community and stakeholder voices in participatory processes – and drive impact. Through our creative and iterative approach, we incorporate education and intentionally-designed interactions to ensure these processes are inclusive, accessible, and representative. This work serves to build trust and lasting connections as communities inform their own futures.

Connect the Dots is DBE/WBE certified in PA, NJ, CT, DC, DE, MD, ME, NY, RI and VA.

Our History

Marisa Denker founded Connect the Dots (CtD), with her co-founder, Naomi Murphy, in Ireland in 2016. CtD has grown from a small Fulbright project to a firm working internationally to bring individuals and organizations together to co-design the future of our cities.

Exploring a paradox in post-crash Dublin: underused vacant spaces, Marisa and Naomi realized that the various stakeholders (city officials, landlords, tenants, even squatters) were siloed and not collaborating. They developed a unique, data-driven methodology to build trust, gather insights, and co-design solutions for seemingly unfixable city challenges. Their success in bringing people to the table spread and demand for their innovative approach grew. The two soon left their jobs and took the leap to formalize Connect the Dots as a business.

Within a few years, CtD went from crowd-funded engagement efforts to working directly with Ireland’s Congress and National Transport Authority. Marisa brought CtD to Philadelphia in mid-2019 and quickly built partnerships with leading organizations such as Project for Public Spaces, collaborated with Comcast, the City of Philadelphia, and other large entities. The team has expanded quickly to meet the needs of planning processes across the East Coast, working from Maryland to Maine.

CtD’s mission is to build better cities and neighborhoods through inclusive, insight-driven stakeholder engagement. We help community, private and public sector partners to develop creative solutions that make cities more livable, vibrant and equitable. Through their unique engagement process, CtD is working to make sure community voices are heard in issues that matter most to changing cities-  enabling new cycleways, pedestrianization efforts, recovery initiatives for key main streets, reimagined transportation, affordable housing, vision plans for major districts, long term comprehensive planning and more – all created with, for, and by communities.

Want to hear more about our origins? Read an interview with our founder Marisa about how CTD got started.