See how the number one per capita manufacturing city in Texas united its departments, nonprofits, and residents around a single community events and engagement platform anyone can use, and built it to outlast any one term in office.
Per capita, Seguin is the number one manufacturing city in the state of Texas, home to manufacturers that are national, international, and Texas-based. But ask Mayor Donna Dodgen what makes Seguin distinctive and she talks less about factories and more about people. This is a community, in her words, that “does a ton of volunteer work,” rich with 501(c)(3)s and community fundraising, and determined to hold onto its hometown feel even as it grows.
Seguin also thinks in generations. The city runs on term limits, two four-year terms on council and two as mayor, yet the mayors have worked deliberately to build continuity. Outgoing leaders are asked to stay on boards and commissions relating to water, planning, or economic development so that hard-won institutional knowledge is never lost in transition.
That same generosity in lifting up the community, though, created challenges. With so many nonprofits, businesses, and departments each promoting their own events, the community kept tripping over itself. Three fundraisers would chase the same audience on the same day, and information lived in a dozen different places, spread across social media, Main Street, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Economic Development, and the library. There was no single front door to community life.
If your city coordinates events across dozens of departments, nonprofits, and business groups, this will sound familiar.
When multiple organizations booked overlapping events, they ended up asking the same community members to be in multiple places at once. Turnout and donations were diluted, and no organization came out as successful as they could be. As the mayor put it, competing for the same audience on the same day “dilutes everything.”
Residents, newcomers, and visitors had to hunt across multiple sources just to find out what was happening. People were going to multiple locations to look for things that should have lived in one place.
Seguin’s nonprofits keep the community running on volunteer hours and fundraising. Getting the word out often meant spending money the organization could not spare, and the city wanted a way to extend those limited dollars further.
Term limits and natural leadership turnover meant Seguin needed systems, not just people, to carry its plans forward. Whatever the city put in place had to be simple enough for anyone to pick up and durable enough to survive the next transition.
“We manage for today, and we plan for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.”
DDDonna DodgenMayor, City of Seguin, Texas
Seguin brought its events and community together on BeWith, connecting Main Street, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Economic Development, and the library so people no longer bounce between multiple online calendars. Instead of a dozen scattered sources, the city now has one centralized hub where anyone can see what is happening.
Because everyone can see what is already on the calendar, events get spread across the month instead of stacking on the same Saturday. Coordinated scheduling de-conflicts events before they start competing for the same audience and the same donation dollars.
Full event pages and ticketing, including reserved-seat selection, let organizers run everything from a free library class to a seated, sold-out fundraiser without bolting on another tool or another vendor.
Any department, nonprofit, or business can post its own events and involvement. Promoting an event is free, so a nonprofit reaches the whole community without spending down a budget it needs for its mission. The mayor’s standard is radical simplicity: “I just want you to use it.”
A platform is only as strong as the community that uses it. Seguin’s public information officer leads ongoing education, reminding people at every event, like State of the City, that the platform exists and how to get the most out of it. The city treats adoption like any other marketing effort.
Because Seguin plans for the long term, BeWith functions as a living system that outlasts any single term in office. For a city on term limits, that is the difference between an investment and a liability: momentum, data, and institutional knowledge carry forward instead of resetting when leadership turns over.
“That education and telling the community what you have, how to use it, is paramount. It doesn’t just build itself … but it will come back to you threefold.”
DDDonna DodgenMayor, City of Seguin, Texas
By coordinating who is hosting what and when, Seguin can spread events across the calendar instead of cannibalizing them, so nonprofits and the businesses that back them all get a fairer share. As the mayor frames it, the platform promotes community support and community involvement.
Residents, newcomers, and visitors now have one clear place to find what is happening. The mayor points out that people coming into the community often lean on it even more than lifelong locals, using it to get oriented in the city they have just adopted as home.
Seguin’s manufacturers are long-standing community supporters through volunteer hours, giving, and foundation donations. The platform gives them an avenue to publish their involvement and gives the city the data to show prospective employers exactly how this community shows up for one another.
A simple library class, where residents made personalized doormats, filled the room wall to wall. Now the city is repeating it at different times to reach different audiences and even taking the idea on the road to local businesses. One good idea becomes repeatable, sponsorable community programming that everyone can find and join.
For a police department father-daughter dance, choose-your-seat ticketing replaced the old back-and-forth of manual seat assignments and emails. Families got a better experience, and admin staff got their time back, exactly the kind of creative, resident-first thinking the platform is built to enable.
Above all, the platform makes it easy to answer the mayor’s constant call to stay involved. Not everyone has the nerve to corner a neighbor and ask them to volunteer, so giving anyone the ability to post an opportunity, or find one, opens the door to participation for the whole community.
“It brings the value of community. It brings the value of volunteerism. It brings the value of unity, it brings the value of knowledge … And it also brings the value of individuality, in that you can do it in any way you would like.”
DDDonna DodgenMayor, City of Seguin, Texas
Seguin is not finished. Mayor Dodgen wants deeper adoption on both sides of the platform: more city departments using it for their own events, more robust use internally, and more community members and nonprofits treating it as the go-to. The next chapter is depth, bringing every remaining department online and making BeWith the reflex for every resident and nonprofit. “That’s our role,” Dodgen says, “to tell people and to encourage them” — and the platform is built to grow exactly that way.
She frames it the way she frames good governance, as something you tend to rather than finish. For a city that manages for today while planning for its grandchildren’s grandchildren, that mindset is the whole point: a platform built to serve everyone, today and for the leaders who come next.
“It’s a living document, and you just have to keep using it and keep expanding it. Don’t forget about it.”
DDDonna DodgenMayor, City of Seguin, Texas
See how BeWith can help your city unite departments, nonprofits, and residents around one platform that anyone can use, and one built to last.