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6.4 A Framework for Twenty-First Century Civic Engagement

6.4.4 Design an Inclusive Community Outreach Strategy

Crafting an inclusive community outreach strategy is challenging, and especially so, if there are budgetary constraints. At the beginning of this chapter, we discussed the concepts of social capital and the networks of trust and association that seem to be important in promoting social cohesion and a commitment to civic engagement.

Planners can help to design opportunities for bridging social capital to emerge – by creating opportunities of people to work collaboratively with other people in their community whom they may have not have had a chance to encounter before.

Increasing the opportunities to hear and learn from a diversity of voices is essential to a successful civic engagement strategy.

A. Draw Study Area Boundaries

As discussed earlier, the definition of a study area is an art. One technique we sug- gest is to overlay study boundaries from different projects that have happened in the area over time to see if there are any visible differences. Another technique is to ask long-term residents about the geographic extents of their neighborhood or community. Yet another technique is to use GIS and statistical software to understand how the demographic composition of the community can shift if a few census blocks are included or excluded in defining a study area. While there is no precise right or wrong answer, the delineation of a study area boundary is a political act, not a technical one.

B. Identify Stakeholders

As previously indicated, the community is not a monolithic whole. True, there is a sense of geographic community, particularly in neighborhoods that are well established over time. There are also communities of interest that may crisscross the study area. Identifying stakeholders requires more than listing the most obvious racial and ethnic groups to identify new and interesting ways in which the community can be encouraged to engage. Relying on formal, established stakeholder groups can be a

6.4 A Framework for Twenty-First Century Civic Engagement

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starting point. In areas with small populations, individuals representing sectoral interests can be assembled to form a group that represents a particular geography.

C. Develop Outreach Plan

The purpose of developing an outreach plan is to find ways to connect with different stakeholder groups, in other words, connect with multiple publics. We recom- mend that planners consider connection points in person (face to face) and online across place and time.

Same place – same time Example: Open houses

Same places – different times

Example: Community-led walking tours Different places – same time

Example: Electronic town hall

Different places – different times Example: Online surveys

Community conversations are at the heart of any outreach endeavor and they are one of the most conventional, reliable, and one of the most rewarding activities associ- ated with community engagement. Holding conversations in real time can be done throughout the course of a project, but they are particularly important in the early stages. It is important to identify those individuals in the community who are com- municators and nodes in information networks. It may be a small business owner, the head of the local parent teacher association (PTA), or the editor of a community newsletter. In any event, begin talking to them to get the word out that a community engagement process is beginning and that they should get involved. In all probabil- ity, they will advise you on who else the planning team should reach out to and provide appropriate contact information.

Focus groups are a specialized kind of structured community conversation. They are an ideal way to get a group together to clarify high-priority issues of concern in the community or to solicit feedback about how to approach a topic. With a good facilitator, an hour-long focused conversation can provide insights about how small groups of people think and feel about a planning problem. Focus groups can be scheduled in advance and organized with a minimum of fuss. Focus groups work very well when the participants have similar interests or are part of the same interest group – for example, conducting a focus group of small business owners who all provide retail services to the community may work better than trying to manage a focus group that includes both retailers and restaurateurs. This is because retail businesses have different kinds of needs and chal- lenges than restaurants and other food service establishments. Thus, putting together focus groups must be approached carefully and systematically to avoid confusion.

Town hall meetings are another type of community conversation. They can offer great benefits because they create opportunities for a robust and broad dialogue with a large swatch of the community in a short period of time, say in a 2-h evening meeting. Organizing and logistics are slightly complicated – most communities will require them to be scheduled several months in advance. Depending on the scale of the project, planners can use a town hall meeting between one and three times over the course of a year-long project. The town hall meeting agenda has to be carefully planned to ensure that the process complies fully with the principles of community engagement described in the previous section.

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Community-led walking/biking tours are a great way to engage active community leaders to showcase their skills and expertise. Having a resident or business owner lead a tour of a neighborhood is a wonderful way to understand the values and places that townspeople hold dear. Some of these activities are better suited for good weather, but these activities can provide additional context to support archival sources like previous planning studies or newspaper reports.

Conversations occur in space and place

Open houses, in the context of this discussion, indicate an accessible physical location that can be made available for walk-in appointments for the public to drop in to dis- cuss a variety of issues and concerns over the life of a project. Vacant storefronts can be repurposed for this task, for example, with a commitment to be available for a couple of hours every week. Once a pattern is established and it is understood that someone will be available, members of the public can feel motivated to visit and engage in the project or projects that are being discussed. Artifacts from work in prog- ress can be presented for review and discussion. Likewise, a computer with an internet connection can allow participants to look at different information online, take an online survey, or otherwise engage in some collaborative activity while they go about their routines – a stop on Saturday morning at a community open house is a nice break from shopping or running errands. By going to where the people already are, planners increase opportunities for meaningful community engagement.

Strategy: Host an Open House

If you are a planner assigned to introduce a project to a community, consider hosting an open house in partnership with a local business, locally based non- profit organization, or a house of worship. In an open house, planners make themselves available to answer questions about their project to drop-in visi- tors. In addition, planners can create a series of activities to engage neighborhood residents in discussing community concerns.

Hosting an open house requires some preplanning and organization. The location of the open house must be familiar and accessible to people in the neighborhood. Open houses that are scheduled after regularly scheduled activities work well because they accommodate the pace of activities in the community and don’t feel like an imposition. Inviting participants to attend and reminding them is another key to having a well-attended open house event. An open house can be distinguished and differentiated from a conventional community meeting because neighbors can drop in and stay for as little or for as long as they want.

It is beneficial to plan several activities to engage different demographic groups – consider different activities for children, teenagers, and elderly, all with the goal of being able to better understand the strengths/assets of the community as well to gather some preliminary data about problems that can be addressed through a planning process. The open house is also an opportunity for a planner to describe the scope and extent of the planning project and document community concerns (if any) about the project.

6.4 A Framework for Twenty-First Century Civic Engagement

Every engagement process should be an opportunity to educate citizens about planning methods and techniques, not through lectures and exams but through informal activities. Young people can be invited to develop their own futuristic visions through art projects, while adults could engage in researching prece- dents or ideas that they would like to see implemented in their community.

Static information displays with contact information can be left in local establishments such as cafes and other hangout spots. Community members should be tasked with the responsibilities of setting up these informational displays – their conversations with business owners will expand the reach of the project and demonstrate that different members of the community are invested in this process.

It is important for planners to recognize the value and benefits of online com- munity engagement as part of a community outreach effort

Digital technologies allow for completely asynchronous communication. A website with downloadable information, online surveys, polls, participatory mapping activities, and other interactive digital methods discussed in Chapter 4 can be developed and used throughout the process. Millennials prefer to participate online rather than face to face. Live streaming of town hall meetings will allow young people and elderly people who are not able to easily travel to join in a meeting can gather a lot of information if they can watch the proceedings via a computer with an internet connection. Smaller groups can conduct a great deal of productive work via confer- ence calls and Web-enabled meetings where documents can be viewed (in shared mode) and discussed. Both free and paid services to facilitate these conversations are now available, and every planning team should take full advantage of them. A webinar is an elegant digital alternative to a town hall meeting, especially if it is intended to have one-way information sharing with a limited question and answer session. People can participate in informal polls or raise questions in this format.

The entire webinar can be archived and made available for nonparticipants who may want to access the information later.

D. Establish Timeline and Reporting Milestones

An outreach strategy must be calibrated to fit the scope of the project and the expectations of the community. Yet, all outreach strategies must include a clear timeline, including measurable milestones, an estimate of the approximate number of people who will be “touched” through the outreach, and a clarity about how each stakeholder group will be contacted. This document requires detail and clarity, and vague notations should be avoided.

E. Publish and Communicate Outreach Plan

Once the plan is finished, the general outline (including timeline and milestones) should be reported out to stakeholder groups, the community at large, and within the planning agency. Outreach is perhaps a misnomer here, signifying uni-directional communication. It should be noted that we have made every effort to create and foster dialogue throughout.

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Design an Inclusive Community Outreach Strategy

Understanding What People Do by Observing Their Actions

Origins of Modern Civic Engagement