In a recent post, Jason Brisson highlights the conflict between “top-down” planning, where experts provide the direction for a project, and “bottom-up” planning, where community members drive (ha, ha, drive, get it?) the project. I do not think this is an either/or issue where technocrats tell a community what it needs versus a community, no matter how biased or ill-informed, tell the planning entity what to do. We can have authentic, real community engagement AND technical expertise.
However, I have rarely experienced real community engagement and I have been involved in spent a lot of time at these types of events. How can we listen to the community’s concerns and gain the kind of useful information that improves a project?
Better Community Engagement
I attend a lot of community engagement and planning sessions. I take time away from my family because I think being involved in the planning process is important. Professionally, part of my job involves engaging the people my organization serves in planning for services that impact them, as well as gathering data for program evaluation. It takes time and resources to plan a community engagement event, and, presumably, the organizers are holding it because they want information that the community has. Why waste our time holding events that do not provide the information we need?
Whether it is an event my organization is holding or an event I am attending, there are two big failures that we need to address if we are to get authentic community engagement. First, most meetings are exclusionary. Second, the sponsoring organization must recognize that they are taking from the community. Authentic engagement requires reciprocity.
These two problems are intertwined and I have been working in my professional life to overcome them. There are both specific, concrete things organizations can do to be more inclusionary and increase reciprocity and changes in attitude that are less concrete, but just as important. As an organizer, I am done wasting my time with meetings that do not accomplish what we need. As an attendee, I am tired of attending meetings where I leave feeling less a part of a project and that I was not heard or listened to.
Concrete ways to have better meetings
The first question to ask when planning a meeting is, “Who are the intended beneficiaries of this project?” Is it a neighborhood, such as planning new amenities in a park? Is it a group of people, like bicyclists or elderly people? Who will use this trail, housing, or street? Who lives in the affected area? Your answers to these questions should drive your planning.
Before planning the actual meeting, the first check-off is:
- Build relationships before you need them.
Will the project impact a particular ethnic, racial, or cultural group? Families with young children? Elderly or people with disabilities? Young adults? Identify the community leaders or networks within that community and arrange a coffee with their representatives. This takes time and will involve connecting with lots of community groups. Do not discount the importance of relationship-building. This is the front-end work that results in connections with the people who are important to the success of your project.
Find out from them the best ways to communicate and advertise within that community. Is it a community newspaper or radio? Through social networks and word-of-mouth? Find out what concerns that community has and how they intersect with your work. If you are planning regional plan for parks, is that community particularly interested in accessibility, safety, health, or something you never thought of?
Once you have a relationship, it is easier to come back and say, “We are planning a 25-year plan for parks and know your community is concerned about having certain amenities. Can we work with you to advertise through your community radio station about an event we’re having?”
Thinking about the actual event, here are the rest of the concrete check-off boxes:
- Space.
I recently attended a meeting at a building that required a state i.d. card or driver’s license to be admitted. Who did that exclude? Anyone who forgot their i.d., as well as people who do not have i.d.s or feel intimidated by having to provide that information. I was also recently invited to a meeting that I did not attend because it was not accessible by bicycle or public transit – the only way to get there safely was by car. That excludes a lot of people.
At work, we hold community meetings in “neutral” spaces like libraries and recreational centers. We know that having the meeting in at our building may exclude people who have negative associations or have had traumatic experiences at our building. It also is a power imbalance where we inhabit that space daily and attendees are only visitors. If we want to encourage attendance and get honest information from attendees, we have to hold meetings at spaces that are welcoming.
Probably the best meetings I attended were in locations were the intended audience was already at. Planning for a park? Hold the meeting at the park. What about farmer’s markets, grocery stores, the laundromat, or community festivals? Where are the people you are trying to reach? That’s where you need to be.
Are your materials available in multiple languages? Did you advertise the event in languages other than English? Do people have to request materials be provided in other languages? Are translators available? If they are, are they in the corner waiting to be approached or are they part of the welcoming table or area? Do you greet people in more languages than English?
At a planning meeting.
Probably the best example I have seen of language-accessibility have been the Friendly Streets Initiative events. The last one I attended had surveys available in four languages, staff who spoke those four languages, and all signage and materials were in those languages. No one had to ask. They were welcomed and could fully participate in their own tongue.
Lots of people have children. Plan for them. When I attend meetings in the evening it means paying a baby-sitter and not seeing my children for the entire day (having worked all day). This is a sacrifice for both me and my children. Not planning for children means excluding people who either cannot afford a baby-sitter or cannot afford the time away from their children. Lately, I have just been bringing my children along. I get the stink eye sometimes, but ultimately my children are also part of the community.
Children have important feedback, too.
Planning for children does not mean having to provide child care (although it can). It can just mean planning your format so that people can move around and that quiet talking is okay. It might mean handing out coloring pages and crayons or having an activity area with a few toys. It means saying, “Children welcome” on advertising, which both tells parents it is fine to bring children AND tells other participants that children will be attending.
Reciprocity means changing attitudes
Once you have made connections and built relationships, have a space that is safe and welcoming, and are able to provide for children and people who speak languages other than English, then it is time for the difficult part. As people holding community input sessions we need to change our attitude from one of an expert to that of learner. I have worked in my field for 15 years and have a Masters degree – shouldn’t I be the expert?
Well, I am, but only in some aspects of the issue. My area is human services – food stamps, welfare, homelessness. It’s been more than 30 years since I received food stamps and I was a child. Now I am evaluating and planning food stamps services. While I have experience with the program most of it is not relevant today. Someone receiving services today has knowledge and experience that is equally as valid as my professional experience and should have a voice in how services are provided. Other people who live in the community, grocery store owners, food shelf organizers all have important experiences related to food stamps, but maybe not as pressing or as important as that of the recipient.
As a road user who bikes, drives, takes transit, and walks, I also have important experiences and knowledge. My perspective is important to planning and I may see things a professional engineer misses. However, I am not a transportation planner so I lack that expertise and experience. I also have limited knowledge of things like budgets, priorities within the agency, and laws that may impact the project.
To really get the information I need, I must set aside my knowledge and come to the table ready to learn. In my work, I do three things to show participants that their time and expertise matters.
- Engage people in the process from the beginning.
Too often we do not include the community until plans have been made and we ask them to react to them. Asking people to respond to a plan once it is far along in the planning process has a few problems. First, on a practical level, it invites nitpicky arguments by giving short-shrift to goals of the project. What are the community members’ goals? What benefits do they want to see? What do concepts like “safety,” “livability,” and “mobility” mean to them? If we take the time to agree on those conceptual ideas first, actual details and implementation will be easier. Secondly, they may have definitions or ideas the experts never thought of. If my idea of safety is very different from that of the transportation planner, my idea most likely will not be addressed and, in the end, my safety needs will not be met. Thirdly, it is just basic respect.
Another PowerPoint.
- Provide a formal feedback loop.
I organize a client engagement group. The first agenda item of every meeting is how we used information they provided previously and, if we could not, we tell them why. Maybe they had a great idea, but we ran into budget constraints or a state policy stands in the way. They need to know this. Again, it’s respectful, but it also helps direct their advocacy to useful places. If it is a state policy then complaining to us will not help, but writing to their state representative might. It also shows that we were listening and respect their time in a real and concrete way. In other situations, this might be a follow-up email or newsletter that provides this information.
- Humanize the event.
It is intimidating to walk into a room full of strange people who are formal experts. Now imagine doing so if you have never done that, have had negative or traumatizing experiences with government organizations, or have been dismissed before. Spend time being human together. That may be sharing a meal or food at the beginning of the meeting. It may be having staff spread throughout the room rather than in front of a podium or ditching the PowerPoint. Where can you use music, toys, or art to both gather feedback and make the space more welcoming? An excellent example of using toys in planning is Place It!, an organization that uses models to let participants design a street or park. Check out their gallery for fun pictures of people giving feedback.
Top-down. Bottom-up. We need both. We need leadership from elected officials to drive change. We need technical experts. We need real involvement from people impacted. If it feels like this list is impossible or there is not time to do all these things, I recognize it is work and it takes time. But, the alternative is a bunch of meetings where the “experts” do not get what they want and communities feel excluded and do not get their needs met. So, that feels like a big waste of time because it is.
Ah, yes, to begin by asking the question, “who are the real beneficiaries of this project?” Let us take the example of the proposed Gold Line, whose beneficiaries, backers–and probably the originators–are developers and commercial property owners.
Super good advice here Dana. I taught a class on engagement recently, and this is one of the best summaries of the key issues I’ve seen.
This is a really a great article and I sincerely hope it makes the rounds of agencies and organizations!
I’ve been to so many meetings where intentions and results just don’t line up–staff seem to struggle with framing questions/discussions in ways that get at underlying motivations and desires, rather than knee-jerk reactions. Many are structured and organized in ways that amplify the voices of those who have held power for a long time. I’ve talked about burn out frequently with others who attend, as well as the sheer amount of time we’re donating without having any sense that anything we say is registering–that these meetings are anything more than a required exercise. And this is, for the most part, people who are quite privileged in many ways.
I think there’s the potential for meetings to be very positive, but as you highlight, it takes very specific concerted efforts to make that. Thank you for sharing all of this.
Great explanation and advice Dana. If planners could get the public engagement piece right, some of the other issues that occur downstream would take care of themselves. The two biggest hurdles I see continually are budgets constraints and lacking skillsets. Many plan budgets don’t provide enough resources for effective engagement and many planners don’t posses the skillset(s) necessary to facilitate effective engagement. Since the days of “meet at city hall at 5:30pm” are over, (some) planners are working to try to find creative new ways to engage, with varying success. I’ve got some more to come on this topic so I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation here.
Absolutely! Budget in particular is very difficult. It can be hard for directors or financial offices to understand why these types of efforts need funding at all, let alone for things like food or toys. In my experience food, in particular, is difficult because of rules about gift-giving and it doesn’t fit neatly into an expense report (travel? no).
We’ve had to convince the powers that be that we need on-going funding for these projects for meals (each meeting has a shared meal), gift cards for attendees (we want to thank them for their time and everyone is extremely low income so the cards are appreciated), and fidget toys to have on the tables. We were able to secure funds for the first two meetings, but had to show results to get any on-going funding. Luckily, our leadership saw the value and continues to fund this. We also made a point of inviting them to meetings so they could see and experience it.
And, yeah, the topic experts aren’t necessarily the best people to be planning and facilitating these groups because that’s not where their training, experience, and value is (although some are quite good). As a program evaluator I have formal training in facilitation and interview skills so we had a start, but we also were able to tap the talents of someone in human resources whose job is facilitation. Her work has been invaluable and I wish more organizations would recognize the need to have people whose job is facilitation and engagement.
Dana this is a mic drop article.
When reading it I thought “well there does not need to be another community engagement article written in the near future. This has it all.”
AT THE SAME TIME:: we need to be very careful with our labor here. If people want more than this beautiful summary, money needs to be involved. Our community has put in endless hours trying to teach those with no community engagement smarts how to do it. But what do we get out of it? Nothing but a pat on the back and more asks of us.
Get that money! Spread the word!
This is amazing, and thank you for writing it.
This is the gold standard for actually getting in touch with a community.
This is a great analysis of problems and possibilities in community engagement. Thank you!
My concern with the first point “Build relationships before you need them” is that it could become a full-time job. My first thought is this is the job of the politician, whether that be the city council member or the county commissioner. My second thought is of the district council. I understand some have a great antipathy toward the district councils, and they may need reform, but they are a supposedly representational body that should have connections to the various groups of interest in the neighborhood. There are more and more official specialized groups that could be contacted, but then there are all of the people who don’t fall neatly into one of these groups. Ideally those people could find representation with the district council or their city council member.
I’m not sure I agree that it’s the planner’s job to forge relationships (ahead of time) with all of these specialized groups. If some complain of how much “process” there is now, think of the number of potential meetings this could lead to.
Our current systems are not perfect, but I think it makes more sense to improve those systems than to bypass them and expect each department and planner to know EVERYONE in the community. Again, to do this well it seems like half of the job of planners would be doing proactive, baseline relationship building. This seems inefficient.
Building relationships ahead of time is critical in so many ways, but it doesn’t have to be an inefficient meeting orgy where planners are chasing every possible subgroup.
I don’t know that planners should be doing this work. If organizations want to get this right they need a dedicated staff person, like in communications or something this is a bit centralized. The problem, as Jason and Melody point out, is that organizations don’t recognize the time and resources it takes to do this well.
I think it more as power networking. Who are the most critical groups? Who are the groups or individuals who are the bellwether or top domino that can provide connections to others? What existing meetings can you go to? This doesn’t have to be an ever growing avalanche of meetings – get on the agenda of existing ones.
It can also mean tapping networks of others in the organization. Not everyone has to each build these relationships, that would be way too much for everyone. But, being aware where trust exists and how to extend that relationship.
It’s been a humbling experience for me to find out how much I don’t know about the area I live. Building relationships in advance taught me about media outlets I didn’t know existed, how to tap into the various grapevines where info is passed. How to invite people respectfully, so much.
These are some really helpful, active steps that can lead to better engagement. I’d love to see more examples of ways to make meetings more kid-friendly and accessible to families. It gets harder in Minneapolis when neighborhood orgs are not allowed to spend any city funding on snacks or “fun” activities, which might make evening meetings more palatable to both people with younger children and college students. Actually funding engagement and dedicating staff to it would be a great step toward building relationships.
Having been involved in the public input process as a staffer, I can assure you that it will always be imperfect and here’s why.
1. No matter how much outreach you do in advance of the project, including during the design effort, critics will pop up when construction is about to begin and claim no one ever talked to them.
2. During outreach activities, project critics will always outnumber supporters disproportionately, so you can’t do straight math to determine which way public opinion is leaning.
3. NIMBYs will always make outrageous claims of negative impact. Logically demolishing those claims will not change their minds–they will just raise new objections. Hopefully, they will be so unreasonable that they will be discredited.
These issues get to the heart of why we need to approach engagement differently. Right now we only get a very small slice of the community – only those with access to information the way it is shared right now and those with time and resources to attend meetings. That tends to be the advocacy community (of which I am part of) and those with a great stake in the project, including those who don’t want whatever project it is. People will always claim not to have heard about something and there will always be those with strong feelings one way or another.
However, I don’t think that is a reason to throw up our hands and quit or to accept things they way they are. There are a ton of people who don’t hear about things who might care and might have important insights, but as organizations we don’t communicate. It is incumbent upon us to change the way we communicate. That’s why the pre-engagement work is so important. Where and how do different groups receive information? KFAI? Somali radio? Access Press disability paper? Social networks? A community gathering spot like a bar or church or corner store? We can’t change the way people listen. We can change the way we communicate.
And, these are all the more reason to gather our feedback differently. If we keep holding the same types of meetings and keep getting the same people, maybe it’s time to do it differently. Make it easy and welcoming for people we don’t normally hear from to be involved. At the core of this is redefining this work from having meetings to a longer-term relationship building process. Changing our work from expert and NIMBY or advocate to partners. That sounds really cheesy, I know, but my biggest aha moments were around humility. Things started getting humming once I sought reciprocity by giving and understanding that people engaging in these processes are giving me something rather than me giving them the opportunity to have a say.
And, getting people involved earlier can head off a lot (not all by any means) of the loudest detractors. If we can agree on goals in the beginning and have a shared definition of them, lots more of the details fall into place later. It also means giving up some control. Are we going into the process only looking for feedback that supports our end? Are we just looking for tweaks in a plan that’s already been decided? No wonder people get pissed. Do participants really, actually have a means of shaping things? This includes people against the project. Not to say the community (however defined) gets complete control. There is a balance between leadership, organization staff/planners, and public. Explaining why the organizations can or cannot act on feedback helps to create that balance.
None of this will ever be perfect because we are people and (hopefully) always learning. It requires radical shift a way from how things are done, much more than just having materials in multiple languages.