How Do We Lift Each Other Up?

(Bottom-Up Planning Mindset Series- Part 3 of 4)

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to Project Planning Green. Last week we went over what effective participation is. This week we are going to build on top of that idea. What are some ways to bring out people that are difficult to reach? How do we use outreach to create effective participation? 

One important rule to remember in community participation is to engage with your community members early, often, and continuously. One important thing to remember is that you are never done engaging with your community, even at the very end of your project. Continuous community outreach builds trust between the project staff and the surrounding neighborhoods. The exchange of ideas will also garner confidence in the final project outcome, as stakeholders realize that their ideas have been heard and is incorporated as part of the project. 

One good way to engage with the local community is to reach out to local leaders and groups, including pastors, non-profits, and local agencies. This is important because local leaders usually understand the dynamics of their local communities well and have a local following that would be difficult to access without their involvement. 

However, this is not to say the local leaders’ opinions can be used to replace a community’s general opinion. In fact, it is important to not only talk to the leaders, but also to encourage them to bring out their followers so project staff can get a chance to learn the opinions of the community members themselves. A common pitfall for working with local leaders is when the project staff takes the opinions of the leadership and treat it as if they are the opinions of the populous. The assumption that local leaders automatically and unilaterally represent their followers is risky. The local leaders cannot know the opinions of all their followers and will not be able to represent them all in an authentic way. Furthermore, local leaders may have agendas of their own that may jeopardize stakeholders’ best interests. Because of the reasons mentioned, project staff should always encourage the involvement of individual stakeholders on top of reaching out to local leaders but the local leadership can play a huge part in turning out their followers and the local stakeholders. 

Once there are people interested in participating, in-person engagement takes several different forms which include: advisory committees, focus groups, open houses, workshops, forums, and much more. We will not be able to go into all the details for each type of these public outreach formats (maybe in a future mini-topic series) but depending on your audience and goals, you will have to pick the format that works for your project objectives and fits with your strategy to solicit the relevant feedback. 

Online engagement is an outreach method that is being implemented more widely in our communities today. Online engagement is now considered an important tool because of the difficulty in reaching younger stakeholders.Online engagement methods are also recommended in conjunction with other engagement methods. Whether it be promoting and conducting surveys of your project on social media, your company’s website, through meetup events, or through local news and website channels, these digital initiatives can provide specific ways to expand your reach, data collection, especially into the untapped younger demographic.

Ultimately, whatever combination of public engagement methods you might end up choosing to use, it is important to establish the goals for your outreach and design an outreach strategy to meet those specific needs. This way you can maximize the effectiveness of your outreach efforts and create the most accurate picture of the public opinion surrounding your project. 

The next and final blog on the topic of Bottom-Up Planning Mindset will wrap up the Bottom-Up Planning Mindset topic and go over how we ourselves can participate in this movement and change our own communities for the better. 

Please note our next podcast will conclude the Bottom-Up Planning Mindset mini-series on Sunday, July 28th, along with our last blog on the topic. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Twitter to stay on top of our releases and tell your friends about us so we can all discuss these social issues together. And please, feel free to leave feedback in the comment section of the blogs or on social media. We love to hear from our Project Planning Green family!

Thank you for tuning in! 

Project Planning Green