What are the most effective strategies for engaging with community groups?
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Engaging with community groups is a vital skill for urban planners who want to create inclusive, sustainable, and responsive projects. However, it can also be challenging, especially when there are conflicting interests, values, or expectations among stakeholders. How can urban planners foster constructive dialogue, collaboration, and trust with community groups? Here are some effective strategies to consider.
Before engaging with any community group, it is important to do some background research and analysis. This can help you identify the key issues, needs, goals, and preferences of the group, as well as their history, culture, and power dynamics. It can also help you avoid potential pitfalls, such as cultural misunderstandings, stereotypes, or biases. By understanding the context, you can tailor your engagement approach and communication style to suit the specific group and situation.
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celine d’cruz
Slum Dwellers International, urban practitioner, bridging the gap bet' the formal and informal city
Begin with the bottom 10-15%. Engagement with the better off among the community will exclude the invisible and more vulnerable among them like women headed households. When you design a strategy that works for the poorest and most vulnerable it includes everyone but if you begin with the privileged few the chances of the benefits trickling down are less.
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David Sorrell, MOL, TDM-CP
Association for Commuter Transportation 40 Under 40 2023 & Oski Leadership Recipient 2023| Mobility/Commuter Planning @ UC Berkeley | Sustainable Transportation Planning & Organizational Development
Your staff should not only do the homework and provide data, but your representatives MUST look like the communities that they serve. In order to get the trust of your constituents, staff reflects and listens to the needs (not the other way around) as to not approach meetings and projects from "the ivory tower"
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Another essential step is to define the purpose and scope of the engagement process. What are the objectives and outcomes of the engagement? What are the roles and responsibilities of the planner and the community group? What are the boundaries and limitations of the engagement? How will the feedback and input from the community group be used and integrated into the project? By clarifying these questions, you can set realistic expectations, establish mutual accountability, and avoid confusion or frustration.
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Billy Kwan
Co-Founder & Principal, Rhindon Strategy and Design | Director, Brock Carmichael Asia | Associate Lecturer, Singapore University of Social Sciences | Certified Facilitator for LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method
Don't forget that before defining the purpose and the scope, the client needs first to define who the internal and external stakeholders are that could shape the purpose and scope of this project. Often when they bring the stakeholders in too late in the process, it creates more complexity and risks to the project.
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Iman Baratvakili
Linkedin Top Community Voice | TEDx Host | Scientific Staff | Future Mobility Consultant | Online Education Coach | Architalk: The First Episodic Architecture Live Show on Instagram
Engage in urban planning on a case-by-case and neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. Some people will insist on being involved, while others won't care.
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Depending on the purpose and scope of the engagement, you may need to use different methods and tools to facilitate the interaction with the community group. Some common methods include surveys, interviews, focus groups, workshops, forums, participatory mapping, visioning, and co-design. Some common tools include online platforms, social media, newsletters, flyers, posters, videos, and games. The choice of methods and tools should reflect the level of involvement, feedback, and influence that the community group has in the project.
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Sharon Lewis
Programme manager and development generalist. Happiest when trying to solve wicked problems.
Local artists are your best allies in community engagement processes. Find ways to employ them in your approach whenever possible. Creative exercises facilitated by artists are a great way to unlock the imaginations of participants and get inputs and ideas that transcend the here and now. A public artwork can also be a valuable and tangible way to reciprocate for the time and energy that community members give to your process.
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Roshan Chandrarathne
Chartered Architect/Senior Lecturer/Freelancer
Communities are ispired and driven by benefits that they get. Therefore planning should start from the point what benifit that the society is getting out of the implementation of the project. With the uncontrlable inovations found in Digital era, the young generation who are supposed to be the benificiaries of any master develoipment is trending to reamin passive, selfish and social media driven with no logic and reasoning. Therfore I belive a`ny future developmenty project should encounter syber spaces where intraction will happen within the virtual space among the beneficiaries once the topic is placed on socila platform.The real planners to reamin nutral,monitoring and extracting facts and inovating short tearm goals and achievements.
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One of the most important aspects of engaging with community groups is to build rapport and trust. This can be done by showing respect, empathy, and sincerity, as well as listening actively, acknowledging different perspectives, and providing feedback. It can also be done by involving the community group in the design and implementation of the engagement process, as well as recognizing and rewarding their contributions. By building rapport and trust, you can create a positive and productive relationship with the community group.
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Iman Baratvakili
Linkedin Top Community Voice | TEDx Host | Scientific Staff | Future Mobility Consultant | Online Education Coach | Architalk: The First Episodic Architecture Live Show on Instagram
Remember the two-to-one ratio; Listen twice as much as you talk and provide solutions. Just as you have two ears and one mouth, this approach establishes credibility and assures them that their input is valued. Consider this phase as analysis rather than design, reinforcing their belief that their thoughts are being genuinely considered.
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Kerl LaJeune
Architect | Planner | Designer | Public Developer | Adjunct Professor | Marathon Coach & Pacer
During engagements, display clear focus on the ‘respect’ for their opinions which will increase your trust. Stakeholders want to always trust but are coming with biases from untrustworthy individuals. Get them at ease as if you’re in their living room having tea.
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Even with the best intentions and preparations, engaging with community groups can sometimes encounter conflicts and challenges. These can arise from divergent opinions, interests, or values, as well as from miscommunication, misunderstanding, or mistrust. To manage these situations, it is important to have a clear and transparent process for resolving disputes, as well as a respectful and constructive attitude for addressing issues. It is also important to seek common ground, compromise, and collaboration, as well as to celebrate successes and achievements.
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Jessica Hemingway (Dr. Ing.)
Senior Researcher / Postdoc at Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development
One thing that can be helpful is getting to know a trusted community leader beforehand. And having them introduce you to other community leaders. This can helpful to avoid conflict by gaining a better understanding of the neighborhood history, conflicts, needs and general feeling toward the future.
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Ahmad-Shah Duranai
High Performance Business Advisor| Serving S/M Businesses in Creative industries earn more income using Leadership, Communication and Soft skills, High Performance Team Dynamics.
Engagement will be more productive when the terms of reference for dealing with conflicts are clear and straightforward from the get go. This will not only help to enhance the level of engagement, but make the engagement more productive and enjoyable.
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The last strategy for engaging with community groups is to evaluate and improve the engagement process. This can be done by collecting feedback and data from the community group and other stakeholders, as well as by reflecting on your own performance and experience. By evaluating and improving, you can identify what worked well and what did not, as well as what can be done better in the future. You can also use the evaluation and improvement to inform and update the project and the community group.
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NUHA ELTINAY
Senior Expert, Urban Resilience and Climate Adaptation
Reporting Back and Sharing Results One of the key elements to be considered in Community Engagement is reporting back the results of data collection, and share outputs to provide sense of ownership. This is important for community empowerment and building trust, specially with the most vulnerable.
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Kaveh Haji.Ali.Akbari
Urban Development Expert
Assessment of the engagement process and its outcomes, impacts, and consequences needs an indicator-based approach, in which appropriate dimensions, criteria, indices, and measures are constructed with the collaboration of stakeholders and due to the unique circumstances of each community. This framework can be utilised to appraise, monitor, and evaluate engagement efforts in different steps.
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Niels De Vries Humèl
Make use of the innovative and creative power of the next generations/youth. Parallel to the participation project we are running, we try to involve students by supporting education projects as part of the school programme. We provide the design programmes with case examples and real challenges. We ask the students to work on innovative participation tools and methods focussing on the involvement of specific community groups such as 'the unusual suspects' within the community. Every time we are suprised by the inventive and creative solutions and the practical approach.
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Andrew Flores, AICP
A responsible and ethical practitioner will develop and support a community group's capacity development including leadership capacity, adaptive capacity, management capacity and technical capacity. Meaningful engagement does not happen in a vacuum. Unfortunately, merely talking at a community group will get you paid and keep the business contracts rolling in.
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