{"id":40829,"date":"2021-06-19T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/"},"modified":"2024-02-22T09:09:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T14:09:21","slug":"how-do-you-engage-communities","status":"publish","type":"blog_posts","link":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you Engage Communities?"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":40830,"template":"","resource_tax_market":[186,187,188,189,190],"resource_tax_dept":[198],"resource_tax_type":[164],"resource_tax_region":[],"resource_tax_outcomes":[205,207],"resource_tax_topic":[],"resource_tax_products":[191],"resource_tax_solutions":[214],"resource_tax_services":[],"class_list":["post-40829","blog_posts","type-blog_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","resource_tax_market-local-government-uk","resource_tax_market-central-government-uk","resource_tax_market-healthcare-uk","resource_tax_market-emergency-services-uk","resource_tax_market-housing-uk","resource_tax_dept-engagement-community-outreach-uk","resource_tax_type-blogs-uk","resource_tax_outcomes-foster-community-engagement-uk","resource_tax_outcomes-improve-service-delivery-uk","resource_tax_products-engagementhq-uk","resource_tax_solutions-engagement-uk"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How do you Engage Communities?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do you engage communities online and in-person? Explore how to involve your community in important decision making using community engagement.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How do you Engage Communities?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How do you engage communities online and in-person? Explore how to involve your community in important decision making using community engagement.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Granicus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/granicusco\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-22T14:09:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog-community-engagement-101-3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"590\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"How do you Engage Communities?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Granicus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Granicus Marketing\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/#\/schema\/person\/86d618ccb52051e285962f72626e8881\"},\"headline\":\"How do you Engage Communities?\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-20T03:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-22T14:09:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\"},\"wordCount\":5,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog-community-engagement-101-3.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\",\"name\":\"How do you Engage Communities?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/granicus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog-community-engagement-101-3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-20T03:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-22T14:09:21+00:00\",\"description\":\"How do you engage communities online and in-person? 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It also depends on when engagement occurs during a policy development cycle.<\/p>\n<p>True to its collaborative exchange, participants shape how they participate. Where traditional, top-down initiatives seek only to inform the community on an arrived-at policy decision, the lack of attention to a relationship-based model for delivering public services is wanting \u2013 a point well recognised globally by current efforts to deepen and expand public participation. Community members are engaged when they play a meaningful role in both the decision-making process and the implementation of projects that affect them. Broadening the role of government organisations to include facilitator and collaborator, for instance, empowers locals and community members. Loosening the hold on a top-down approach also instils trust in community members to meaningfully engage in issues.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cCommunity members are engaged when they play a meaningful role in both the decision-making process and the implementation of projects that affect them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37659\" src=\"https:\/\/www.granicus.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/image\/jpeg\/blog-community-engagement-101-5-1.jpg\" alt=\"man presenting community engagement model\" width=\"1000\" height=\"410\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>What are community engagement models?<\/h2>\n<p>Governments and public decision makers who listen to local knowledge, where it feeds back into decisions, facilitate community ownership over outcomes. In this way, community engagement is often depicted as a continuum. This ranges from low-level engagement strategies, such as consultation, to high-level strategies such as community empowerment. Over the last fifty years, <a href=\"\/blog\/international-public-participation-models\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">international public participation models<\/a> have evolved to map engagement to show this influence. Sheree Arnstein\u2019s landmark Ladder of Citizen Participation, developed in 1969, while it <a href=\"\/blog\/ladder-of-citizen-participation-by-sherry-arnstein-revisited\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continues to hold relevance<\/a>, has been adapted variously to suggest engagement\u2019s evolving process-focus. (See for instance, the work of <a href=\"https:\/\/marshallganz.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marshall Ganz<\/a> or Gideon Rosenblatt\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/groundwire.org\/blog\/groundwire-engagement-pyramid\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Engagement Pyramid<\/a>.) More recently, Capire Consultancy\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/capire.com.au\/communities\/publications\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Engagement Triangle<\/a> stems the effect of a generic understanding and misinterpretation of engagement that occurs in organisations. Instead, it identifies desired outcomes based on overarching objectives of informing decisions, building capacity and strengthening relationships between organisations and communities.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.granicus.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/image\/jpeg\/blog-community-engagement-101-4-1.jpg\" alt=\"community enagement: family at pride parade\" width=\"1440\" height=\"590\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2>How do governments engage communities?<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iap2.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/IAP2_Public_Participation_Spectrum.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum<\/a>, developed in the late 1990s, with updates by IAP2 Australasia in 2014, is one of the most utilised and applied of <a href=\"\/blog\/international-public-participation-models\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">international public participation models<\/a> to describe the level of community involvement in decision-making processes. It explains the different levels of engagement that organisations can engage their communities, with the furthest right of the spectrum highlighting the greater community influence on decision making. Each level holds out a different promise to the community to which decision makers are held accountable. Integrating community engagement models into governance strategies, however, local governments utilise formal engagement processes. (This is different to citizen participation that utilises informal processes to voice opinions about policies.) Formal or \u2018state-sanctioned\u2019 participation initiatives invite the public to engage beyond voting \u2013 such as citizen\u2019s assemblies, citizen juries or participatory budgets. Although partaking in the same goal \u2013 improving public services and projects \u2013 these differ from those activities created by citizens, residents and community members themselves through their shared identities and common interests. What\u2019s more, formal initiatives don\u2019t preclude communities actively shaping processes and outcomes of public decisions in the improvement of provision of services for their community. They can also inform local government-led advocacy.<\/p>\n<p>Reframing formal participation in efforts toward deliberative democracy, then, facilitates collaborative exchange. This can take the form of citizen assemblies or 21<sup>st<\/sup> century town hall meetings and other forms of e-democracy. For depending on when it occurs in any given project, community engagement doesn\u2019t preclude responding to a citizen-led approach. (While to-date most public participation occurs late in policy development cycle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opengovpartnership.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/New-Commitments-New-Approaches-2018-2020-Action-Plans.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">some countries are testing \u201clive\u201d policy issues to deepen public engagement<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>How communities are engaged within a policy development cycle gives government organisations and public decision makers a chance to gain localised insight into community sentiments, values and concerns as well as an in depth view into what communities have to say about issues that affect their neighbourhoods, cities, towns and regions. It embodies and deepens the function democracy at the same time it underlines the question, <a href=\"\/blog\/why-is-community-engagement-important\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">why is community engagement important<\/a>?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Explore the Community Engagement 101 Series:<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/what-is-community-engagement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What is Community Engagement<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/why-is-community-engagement-important\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Why is Community Engagement Important<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/benefits-of-online-community-engagement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Benefits of Online Community Engagement<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How do you Engage Communities Online<\/a><\/p>\n","button":""}}]},"posts_slider_group":{"show_section":true,"posts_slider":[{"add_anchor":false,"anchor_name":"","background_color":"green","slider_subhead":"","slider_headline":"Discover More Blogs","slider_text":"","slider_type":"blog_posts","manual_resources":false,"slider_resource_tax":"recent","add_additional_filters":false,"department_filter":false,"market_filter":false,"outcome_filter":false,"product_filter":false,"region_filter":false,"solution_filter":false,"topic_filter":false,"slider_link":{"title":"View All Resources","url":"\/uk\/learning-center\/","target":""},"slider_link_icon":false}]},"centered_layout_builder_clone":{"flexible_page_builder_group":{"flexible_page_builder_fields":[{"acf_fc_layout":"wysiwyg","add_menu_anchor":false,"anchor_menu_text":"","wysiwyg_group":{"show_section":true,"alignment":"left","subhead":"","headline":"","wysiwyg":"<p>The question \u201chow do you engage communities?\u201d depends on the degree of influence given to the community in a decision-making process. It also depends on when engagement occurs during a policy development cycle.<\/p>\n<p>True to its collaborative exchange, participants shape how they participate. Where traditional, top-down initiatives seek only to inform the community on an arrived-at policy decision, the lack of attention to a relationship-based model for delivering public services is wanting \u2013 a point well recognised globally by current efforts to deepen and expand public participation. Community members are engaged when they play a meaningful role in both the decision-making process and the implementation of projects that affect them. Broadening the role of government organisations to include facilitator and collaborator, for instance, empowers locals and community members. Loosening the hold on a top-down approach also instils trust in community members to meaningfully engage in issues.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cCommunity members are engaged when they play a meaningful role in both the decision-making process and the implementation of projects that affect them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37659\" src=\"https:\/\/www.granicus.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/image\/jpeg\/blog-community-engagement-101-5-1.jpg\" alt=\"man presenting community engagement model\" width=\"1000\" height=\"410\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>What are community engagement models?<\/h2>\n<p>Governments and public decision makers who listen to local knowledge, where it feeds back into decisions, facilitate community ownership over outcomes. In this way, community engagement is often depicted as a continuum. This ranges from low-level engagement strategies, such as consultation, to high-level strategies such as community empowerment. Over the last fifty years, <a href=\"\/blog\/international-public-participation-models\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">international public participation models<\/a> have evolved to map engagement to show this influence. Sheree Arnstein\u2019s landmark Ladder of Citizen Participation, developed in 1969, while it <a href=\"\/blog\/ladder-of-citizen-participation-by-sherry-arnstein-revisited\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">continues to hold relevance<\/a>, has been adapted variously to suggest engagement\u2019s evolving process-focus. (See for instance, the work of <a href=\"https:\/\/marshallganz.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marshall Ganz<\/a> or Gideon Rosenblatt\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/groundwire.org\/blog\/groundwire-engagement-pyramid\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Engagement Pyramid<\/a>.) More recently, Capire Consultancy\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/capire.com.au\/communities\/publications\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Engagement Triangle<\/a> stems the effect of a generic understanding and misinterpretation of engagement that occurs in organisations. Instead, it identifies desired outcomes based on overarching objectives of informing decisions, building capacity and strengthening relationships between organisations and communities.<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.granicus.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/image\/jpeg\/blog-community-engagement-101-4-1.jpg\" alt=\"community enagement: family at pride parade\" width=\"1440\" height=\"590\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2>How do governments engage communities?<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iap2.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/IAP2_Public_Participation_Spectrum.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum<\/a>, developed in the late 1990s, with updates by IAP2 Australasia in 2014, is one of the most utilised and applied of <a href=\"\/blog\/international-public-participation-models\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">international public participation models<\/a> to describe the level of community involvement in decision-making processes. It explains the different levels of engagement that organisations can engage their communities, with the furthest right of the spectrum highlighting the greater community influence on decision making. Each level holds out a different promise to the community to which decision makers are held accountable. Integrating community engagement models into governance strategies, however, local governments utilise formal engagement processes. (This is different to citizen participation that utilises informal processes to voice opinions about policies.) Formal or \u2018state-sanctioned\u2019 participation initiatives invite the public to engage beyond voting \u2013 such as citizen\u2019s assemblies, citizen juries or participatory budgets. Although partaking in the same goal \u2013 improving public services and projects \u2013 these differ from those activities created by citizens, residents and community members themselves through their shared identities and common interests. What\u2019s more, formal initiatives don\u2019t preclude communities actively shaping processes and outcomes of public decisions in the improvement of provision of services for their community. They can also inform local government-led advocacy.<\/p>\n<p>Reframing formal participation in efforts toward deliberative democracy, then, facilitates collaborative exchange. This can take the form of citizen assemblies or 21<sup>st<\/sup> century town hall meetings and other forms of e-democracy. For depending on when it occurs in any given project, community engagement doesn\u2019t preclude responding to a citizen-led approach. (While to-date most public participation occurs late in policy development cycle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opengovpartnership.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/New-Commitments-New-Approaches-2018-2020-Action-Plans.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">some countries are testing \u201clive\u201d policy issues to deepen public engagement<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>How communities are engaged within a policy development cycle gives government organisations and public decision makers a chance to gain localised insight into community sentiments, values and concerns as well as an in depth view into what communities have to say about issues that affect their neighbourhoods, cities, towns and regions. It embodies and deepens the function democracy at the same time it underlines the question, <a href=\"\/blog\/why-is-community-engagement-important\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">why is community engagement important<\/a>?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Explore the Community Engagement 101 Series:<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/what-is-community-engagement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What is Community Engagement<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/why-is-community-engagement-important\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Why is Community Engagement Important<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/benefits-of-online-community-engagement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Benefits of Online Community Engagement<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/how-do-you-engage-communities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How do you Engage Communities Online<\/a><\/p>\n","button":""}}]}},"post_slider_clone":{"posts_slider_group":{"show_section":true,"posts_slider":[{"add_anchor":false,"anchor_name":"","background_color":"green","slider_subhead":"","slider_headline":"Discover More Blogs","slider_text":"","slider_type":"blog_posts","manual_resources":false,"slider_resource_tax":"recent","add_additional_filters":false,"department_filter":false,"market_filter":false,"outcome_filter":false,"product_filter":false,"region_filter":false,"solution_filter":false,"topic_filter":false,"slider_link":{"title":"View All Resources","url":"\/uk\/learning-center\/","target":""},"slider_link_icon":false}]}},"call_to_action":{"hide_call_to_action":false,"color":"red","custom_cta":false,"custom_subhead":"","custom_headline":"","custom_description":"","custom_link":null,"custom_image":false}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_posts\/40829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog_posts"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_market","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_market?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_dept","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_dept?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_type?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_region?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_outcomes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_outcomes?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_topic?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_products","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_products?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_solutions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_solutions?post=40829"},{"taxonomy":"resource_tax_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/granicus.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_tax_services?post=40829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}