Community engagement is an approach for involving stakeholders that may affect the results of an organisation and includes various communication methods and approaches.
Examination of community participation implementation within interventions can provide invaluable insight for future communication efforts, and this review provides an effective means of doing just that.
Definition
Community engagement is a strategic approach to working collaboratively with groups associated by geographic proximity, common interest or affiliation in order to identify and address issues affecting their wellbeing. Leveraging social capital allows communities to participate more fully in public decision making processes.
Although community engagement and civic participation may seem interchangeable, there is an important distinction between them that involves intentional interactions between communities and public decision makers while citizen participation refers to any form of civic activism which seeks to alter policies through democratic processes.
Preparatory and informative participation are two popular forms of community engagement within urban planning. Prepatory participation encourages residents to provide ideas regarding future development projects; although not the main decision makers, their opinions must still be taken seriously. Informational participation aims at keeping the public updated with urban planning developments and decision-making processes through relevant channels; for instance, Vantaa uses an engagement portal for this purpose.
Purpose
Community engagement is a strategy for working collaboratively with groups of people united by geography, special interest or similar circumstances to identify and address the issues affecting those groups. Community engagement provides citizens with a path towards empowerment that’s crucial to strong democracies.
As part of citizen participation, academia should recognize that not all knowledge resides solely in academic environments and recommit to their societal contract by sharing research results and discoveries with community members (Brennan, 2015). A current approach to engagement recognizes both communities and higher education institutions will benefit from forming this new alliance.
Community engagement and citizen participation often get mixed up, yet each has distinct distinctions. While both involve working with stakeholders, community engagement typically involves targeted interactions between communities and public decision makers while citizen participation includes all activities undertaken by citizens to influence policy outcomes – from direct involvement with community groups to political activism such as demonstrations or lobbying.
Methods
Community engagement methods vary based on the needs of any given project. To ensure that marginalized voices are heard, community-oriented engagement levels should take account of existing power dynamics during consultations and decision-making forums. A variety of techniques can also be combined together in order to promote diversity of perspectives while avoiding polarization.
Integrating feedback loops into your community engagement strategy enables you to accurately measure the effects of your efforts, whether through post-engagement surveys with open-ended questions or one-on-one interviews. Tools like interest-influence grids are also invaluable in categorizing stakeholders based on participation levels and influence, helping prioritize activities accordingly.
Establishing clear objectives for your community engagement plan is vital to meeting the informational needs of your audience. Your goals should align with both your business goals and community concerns.
Results
Idealistically, community engagement should produce a plan that is accepted by all stakeholders; however, this won’t always be possible due to different ideas, concerns, and history that affect your project but are impossible for you to fully comprehend. Therefore, getting input early from community members could save months or years later due to potential political landmines that could set back progress of the project.
Maintaining channels of communication with the community after engaging them is equally as crucial, whether through surveys, interviews or simply leaving an open door for future feedback opportunities.