Public and community engagement, involvement and participation is what we are doing as consultants. It is also what we help others do most effectively. We work with teams, companies and agencies on reaching consensus through public participation and collaboration. We usually find ourselves bridging divides by creating spaces where people are willing to participate to build solutions. Community engagement builds consensus. And below you have some of the best of the news and tips that we have found about how to engage communities. Or what happens when you do not. The latest news handpicked by our public sector consultants, all wrapped up with a sometimes snarky – yet always informed – perspective. Enjoy!
My political science professor said on our first day in her class that politics is simply an alternative to violence. That stuck with me for decades and came roaring back to mind one January 6th. Nearly four years later, America has voted against politics. In a more recent ...
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Nobody put it more eloquently than Sly and the Family Stone: people are different. (Feel free to substitute your own adjectives; just try to keep it clean.) We communicate in different styles and when we’re agitated, concerned, scared or pissed off, people can adopt refreshingly new styles which might ...
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Neither I nor my partners have ever claimed to be mediators in a formal and legal sense, although we do routinely facilitate multi-party mediation for projects. We teach and coach this work as well as doing it, so professional development is always at the top of mind for us, and ...
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It’s helpful to find hopeful signs during an often frustrating period of trying to engage communities that appear so separated by politics and culture. Philanthropic organizations are putting resources into mostly rural places where seeds of democracy can be planted and accomplishments are real....
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I’ve been working on one particular client project for nearly a decade and a half. The project is (obviously) long-term, the stakes are enormous, and so are the community challenges. The public/stakeholder group that I facilitate recently crafted and finalized a formal Good Neighbor Agreement that spells out enforceable ways ...
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Repeat almost anything often enough and people will start to believe it. Like, for instance, the idea that we’re a hopelessly divided nation. Fact is, we’re probably not, at least not as much as most people think. The loudest, extremist voices on either side of politics might say so, but ...
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The National Civic League is proposing to eliminate the current public comment processes – hearings and traditional public meetings. On face value, that sounds radically provocative, but in fact, they favor better, deliberative processes that allow for real public participation in the decisions that public officials grapple with. We’ve agreed ...
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Sarah Palin once said that “polls are only good for strippers and cross country skiers.” That’s a little harsh, but given the state of public opinion polling, she might not be the only person who thinks that these days. The public opinion measuring business has changed and continues to try ...
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People pay closest attention and respond to the things that scare them; we’re just wired that way. So, the people who want to get your attention and keep you responding to whatever they’re selling will continually tell you things to make you believe you’re going to lose something or get ...
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Meetings get a bad rap and I confess that I’ve sometimes been guilty of piling on. Traditional public meetings are often the least effective way to engage a community, in light of all the other options and formats. But it’s not necessarily the meeting itself that’s the problem, but how ...
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