Community research
The answers to the following questions will influence the way you can best engage with your community:
- Who are your stakeholders? Are they local, regional or statewide?
- What is the community demographic? Are they accessible for meetings or is distance and timing an issue?
- What is the community’s cultural background? How can they be effectively engaged?
- What skills and knowledge do community members have? How can these best be harnessed?
The importance of research
To develop an appropriate process of community engagement, you need to take into account community issues and dynamics. For example, if communities have no prior knowledge or history in an issue, then it may be necessary to provide a first round of information exchange and then a later round of consultation or active participation to help decide on outcomes. Alternatively, if your community has a negative history with respect to the issue, then the first round of engagement may instead focus on building trust and relationships.
Preliminary research will help clarify who your communities are and the issues they are likely to bring to the engagement. If, after conducting this research, you find that there are associated issues that might relate to another agency’s responsibility, then consider a more holistic, cross-agency approach to engagement.
Managers need to determine what level of research will be important for each engagement process that is undertaken. As a general rule, the more significant the issue, and the less that is known about a community, the greater the value that research will provide. The following types of preliminary research can help answer these questions. Follow the link for more detail on each of these techniques:
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