Community Engagement
The Facts You Should Know About Community Engagement - 13 Steps to Raising the Right Crowd - A Free Report
“The energy and enthusiasm generated…was extraordinary.”
City of Sydney staff
Communities of all sorts can sometimes struggle to get positive engagement and participation of a cross section of members and constituents (“stakeholders”).
In these modern times, people are more and more busy and less inclined to get involved. And yet, engagement is becoming even more important.
As a community leader, you may experience the frustration of having the usual not so positive voices involved and despair at how you can change this.
Further, your community or network may have reached the limit of what can be achieved by individuals and organisations operating in isolation. And yet, attempts at facilitating collaboration are not always entirely successful or do not incorporate the latest practices and principles.
What is required is a systematic step by step approach that provides a predictable result each time it is used.
Community Engagement
We have developed a free report that provides such a systematic approach.
The 13 steps program provides a complete roadmap for generating extraordinary community or network engagement.
It outlines 13 specific steps, most of which apply to any community or network and any issue (be it community visioning or planning or something more specific such as economic development, prosperity, health, mental health, wellbeing, sustainability, youth, education, transportation or whatever).
The 13 Steps to Successful Community Engagement
It is possible that your own circumstances mean that some steps (or parts thereof) are not applicable, however, the closer you can stick to these suggestions, the more likely you will be to achieve extraordinary engagement.
The steps should be considered and applied in the order presented. The first 3 steps are foundational and will only require a decision without any further action.
Step 1 - Adopt a Marketing Mindset
The first thing you need to understand about generating engagement is that it is a marketing exercise. Marketing in this sense simply refers to communication — what might even be called ‘Informational Marketing’. Your role will be to simply educate or share information about what you’re doing, and you will be doing it with a deep understanding of and addressing the needs of your stakeholders so that you maximise the chances of them getting involved.
Step 2 - Do It Properly or Not At All
Too many attempts to generate engagement flounder because of lack of planning and effort. If you want to be successful, be prepared to put in twice as much time as you previously thought it might require.
Doing what? Read on…
Step 3 - Don’t Engage for the Sake of Engagement
That might sound crazy but hear this — engagement matters not one iota unless there is some underlying purpose, something you’re seeking to achieve. Not only that, if you try to engage for its own sake, you won’t be successful. The demands on people’s time are expanding exponentially and they simply won’t get involved for the sake of being involved.
Step 4 - Prepare a Pithy, Positive, Passion-filled Purpose
This is critical. You need to document exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve before you seek to generate engagement. Make it positive and no more than 1 or 2 lines. It should also be worded in such a way that it generates passion and interest from constituents or members.
Step 5 - Consider Forming a Planning Group
The planning group will exist to at least provide input and guidance and at best to actually take responsibility for the initiative. The major benefit of the latter is that it sends out two clear messages — (1) the involvement of stakeholder groups is important, and (2) the responsibility for effecting change does not just lie with one organisation or government body.
Step 6 - Identify Your Stakeholders (the “Whole System”)
This should include organisations, groups and individuals who you think are important to engage (eg community leaders). Your aim should generally be to engage the “whole system” by selecting individuals and organisations who meet one or more of the following criteria (based on the acronym ARE IN):
Authority to act (eg decision making responsibility)
Resources such as contacts, time or money
Expertise in the issues to be considered
Information about the topic that no others have
Need to be involved because they will be affected by the outcomes and can speak to the consequences
Step 7 - Identify Your Major Stakeholders
Based on the stakeholders you have already identified, now is the time to identify your major stakeholder groups. The reasons for doing this are:
- So you can focus on the needs of each of the groups. Without being clear as to your major stakeholder groups, it is very difficult to be clear about needs (see Step 8).
- It helps to clarify the ‘whole system’ and sometimes results in the inclusion of stakeholders who were previously not thought of.
Step 8 - Identify Stakeholder Group Needs
Now is the time to identify the needs of each stakeholder group. Take each group in turn and brainstorm what needs they have that might be met by being involved. Here is where it is critical to have input from at least one member of each stakeholder group. If you have a Planning Group that includes members from each stakeholder group, you can do this exercise with the Planning Group. If not, make sure that you somehow involve other groups representatives. Face to face involvement is best.
Step 9 - Use Appropriate Messages
Your invitations seeking involvement should be worded in a way which focuses on the needs identified in step 6. This is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT. If you don’t address their needs, you can forget about getting them involved. It’s as simple as that.
A great golden rule here is to talk about the stakeholders and their needs BEFORE you talk about the initiative or yourself. In short, people engage when they see themselves or their needs.
Step 10 - Use Appropriate Channels
You need to consider the channels that your stakeholder groups regularly interact with and trust. The three broad channels for getting your message out are advertising (including direct mail and offline and online media), referrals (ie word of mouth) and public relations. If the initiative is important enough, be open to using all three as it provides a synergistic and reinforcing effect.
For more important stakeholders, consider personal contact and even meeting with them if they are critical.
Step 11 - Describe the Process
People want to know that their views will be valued and incorporated as part of the process and that you’re not engaging them just to be seen as doing so. The best way to do this is to describe the process being used in a step by step way if possible.
Also describe the lead up to their involvement. Trust is everything in relationships so if you have had a Planning Group involved, it is great to share the details of that group and explain how it was formed. Nothing works better to demonstrate your genuine desire for engagement than being able to tell people that you have already started doing it (at least at a smaller level).
Step 12 - Build the Credibility
In order to get involved, people also want to trust that their time spent will ultimately lead to something productive. You can do this by outlining definite or possible follow up and sharing other information that will enhance the credibility of the initiative.
If you think you’ll automatically have credibility because of who you represent (eg a local council or business network) think again. Most people have experiences of having given up their time for things that haven’t resulted in anything very productive.
Step 13 - Offer Other Incentives?
Our view is that it is fine to offer incentives to encourage involvement, particularly if there is one or more important stakeholder group that may be difficult to engage.
You should be mindful of the fact that people who get involved because of an incentive may not stay involved once they have received the incentive. However, if your aim is simply to hear the views of such people, then by all means, offer away.
To Obtain the Free Report
For a copy of the free report on The Facts You Should Know About Community Engagement, email us at info@futuresearch.net.au
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