This document discusses public engagement strategies and tactics. It begins with a poll about experience with engagement. It then outlines two impacts of the internet - empowering individuals and citizen groups. Successful engagement tactics discussed include proactive recruitment, bringing diverse perspectives together, and using online tools to provide information and generate ideas. The document also covers challenges like digital divides and ensuring engagement leads to implementation. Examples of public engagement projects in Northwestern Ontario and Decatur, Georgia are provided.
4. How much experience do you have with
public engagement? (a quick poll)
A. Quite experienced
with face-to-face
engagement
B. Quite experienced
with online
engagement
C. Quite experienced
with both
D. Some experience,
mainly with face-to-
face engagement
E. Just beginning
5. The big picture:
Two impacts of the Internet
1. Empowering individual citizens (web, email –
wrapped up in other changes)
2. Empowering citizen
groups (Facebook,
Twitter, other social
media)
6. First impact:
How have citizens* changed?
More educated
More skeptical – different attitudes toward
authority
Have less time to spare
Better able to find resources, allies, information
* “citizens” = residents, people
7. Second impact allows for new forms of
engagement
More sustained
Larger, more diverse numbers of people
Easier for ‘engagers’ – recruitment doesn’t
have to start from scratch
More open to ideas from the ‘engaged’
Need joint planning for engagement
infrastructure – not just tools
8. What is not changing
Need for face-to-face relationships
Need for an overall engagement plan
Importance of partnering with other groups,
organizations, institutions
10. Successful recent public
engagement tactics
Proactive about recruitment
Bringing diverse perspectives together
Sharing experiences
Giving people chance to make up their own minds
(deliberative)
Different levels of action: volunteers, teams,
organizations, policy decisions
Increasing use of online tools
11. Successful tactic: Proactive recruitment
Map community networks;
Involve leaders of those networks;
Hold a kickoff
meeting;
Follow up,
follow up, follow
up.
12. Successful tactic: Small-group processes
No more than 12 people per group;
Facilitator who is impartial (doesn’t give
opinions);
Can be online or
face-to-face (or
both)
13. Successful tactic: Framing an issue
Provide an agenda or guide that:
Begins by asking people to talk about why they
care about this issue or question
Gives them the information they need, in ways
they can absorb and use it
Lays out several options or views (including
ones you don’t agree with)
Ends with questions that get people to plan
what they want to do (not just what they want
you to do)
17. Successful tactic: Online tools
Particularly good for:
Providing background information
Data gathering by citizens
Generating and
ranking ideas
Helping people
visualize options
Maintaining
connections
over time
18. Digital divides (plural)
Overall, Internet access growing
“Access” – to Internet, to government – has
never been enough
Different people use different hardware
Different people go to different places on the
Internet
Communities just as complex online as off –
recruitment must be proactive
19. Common mistakes
Treating Internet as a one-way medium
Not enough recruitment
Transparency without proactive engagement
Gathering ideas and not implementing them
21. Does this presentation match your
experiences with public engagement?
(a quick poll)
A. Yes, this fits with my experience
B. No, it doesn’t fit
C. In some ways it does, in some ways it
doesn’t
D. I really don’t have enough experience yet
to judge
22. “Share Your Story, Shape Your Care”
Northwestern Ontario
• Began in 2009
• North West Ontario Local Health Integration
Network, Ascentum
• Issue: health care planning and improvement of
health care services
• 800 participants
• Received IAP2 award
23. “Share Your Story, Shape Your Care”
Northwestern Ontario
Element 1 – Online choicebook that provided
background information and data, described main
options
24. “Share Your Story, Shape Your Care”
Northwestern Ontario
Element 2 – Online “stories and ideas” tool that allowed
people to share experiences, solutions
25. “Share Your Story, Shape Your Care”
Northwestern Ontario
Element 3 – Conversation guide for face-to-face,
moderated small-group meetings
26. “Decatur Next”
Decatur, Georgia
Large-scale planning efforts in 2000, 2010
Initial Organizer: city government and a local
nonprofit (Common Focus)
Issues: schools, race, growth
450 participants in 2000, 680 in 2010 (city of
17,000)
27.
28. “Decatur Roundtables”
Decatur, Georgia
Outcomes:
Decatur Neighborhood Alliance
Promotion of tax abatement plan for seniors,
other anti-displacement efforts
Less tension between different groups
New model for land use decisions
Extensive citizen input into city’s strategic plan
29. Successes, limitations of
engagement so far
Successes: Making policy decisions, planning
Catalyzing citizen action
Building trust
Fostering new leadership
Challenges: Time-consuming (especially recruitment)
Unsustainable (usually not intended to be)
Meets goals of ‘engagers,’ not ‘engaged’
Doesn’t change the institutions
Limited impact on equity
Trust, relationships fade over time
34. Why plan for more sustainable
kinds of engagement?
1. Sustain the benefits
2. Allow the ‘engaged’ to set the agenda
3. Better address inequities
4. Increase community attachment and economic
growth
5. Increase residents’ sense of legitimacy and
“public happiness”
39. Resources (continued)
• On YouTube: the DDC channel
• Using Online Tools to Engage – and Be
Engaged by – the Public at
http://bit.ly/iwjgqn
• Planning for Stronger Local Democracy at
bit.ly/M1pvMp – and other resources at
www.nlc.org
The DDC network includes practitioner organizations, operating foundations, and academic researchers
This is the challenge – and opportunity – we all face, no matter what kinds of organizations we lead or belong to
Face-to-face and online communication enrich one another; surveys show that online use increases desire for face-to-face communication. Name other partners?
Sometimes this means action by citizens that is seeded by gov’t with small grants
Refer to Using Online Tools guide
“ Embedded in the DNA of online tools are two values: democracy and transparency”