If you answered ‘an old white guy’ you win … congratulations! The following data shows that the preponderance of public participants tend to be white, older, male and there to protect their status quo. Big surprise? Probably not. Is that most effective and useful? Probably not. Determining who really needs to be engaged is one of the first steps of any effective public involvement project, but here’s the reality of the current situation, and it’s not Sidney Poitier.