Setting up a community engagement platform is no small feat. It requires defining clear goals, juggling deadlines, and coordinating with multiple stakeholders, some of which are outside of the government. Efficient internal organization is therefore key to the success of your community engagement efforts, and yet it remains one of the main challenges that many local governments face.
Step 1 of your digital community engagement: getting the right people at the table
The number of stakeholders you should involve in your community engagement efforts will vary depending on the size of your project, your community, and even your team. For each participation platform or project you’ll need to collaborate with (at least) the following roles:
- Policymaker(s): You’ll need political will and support to run effective community engagement projects. A mayor or council member doesn’t need to be actively involved in the implementation of your platform, but they should be aware of it and on board with the idea of engaging community members. Since the objective of a participation platform is to influence local policy and decision-making, policymakers must be willing to listen to their community’s input.
- Project manager: This person will have oversight of the project and/or platform, with the explicit responsibility of keeping policymakers in the loop about developments.
- Communications manager: Your participation platform needs to be embedded into your city’s broader communication strategy, and should be included in existing communication channels. Strong, cohesive communications can help you effectively direct community members to your platform.
- IT manager: While our digital community engagement platform is built with all users in mind – both administrators and participants – you may find you can still benefit from engaging someone from your IT team. Engaging them can also be helpful to ensure your platform integrates well with your other existing tools.
Step 2 of your digital community engagement: setting cross-team expectations
Chances are, your community engagement endeavors will touch on the work of multiple teams and departments. And even if they don’t, they’ll certainly impact multiple roles within your own team. So, to set up for success you’ll need to:
- Define objectives: The first step is to set your goals and choose the relevant metrics to measure success. Does the project aim to reach a lot of votes? To engage a certain age group? And how will this be measured?
- Agree on key dates: This will keep things ticking along. We also recommend sharing some of these deadlines on the platform to set clear expectations with your community.
- Create a communications plan: Who is in charge of communications with city leaders? There should be enough coordination between the team in charge of the platform and the departments responsible for the projects on it. Also, how (often) will you respond to community members’ ideas on the platform? When and how will you share results or updates?
Step 3 of your digital community engagement: learn by doing
Sure, we’ve already listed several steps that will require planning and laying groundwork to set you up for success. But keep in mind that community engagement always entails some form of trial and error. It’s okay to give your team time to get used to these new processes. Once the overarching objectives, roles, and deadlines have been set, it’s time to get out there and give it a try. From there, apply your lessons learned to iterate when needed.
When the team in Texel, the Netherlands set out to engage their community they consciously started small to ensure a smooth internal process. They did this by launching quick polls about their environmental policy. Even in the early stages, the platform illustrated strong internal collaboration: the deputy mayor and councilor, Edo Kooiman, was actively involved and assisted with communication efforts to raise awareness about the platform in the community.
The communication team also promoted the platform by sharing videos, pictures, and tweets about the process on Texel’s social media platforms. All in all, these practices illustrate the commitment and internal alignment of a variety of stakeholders.
We felt that it was vital to deliver on the promises the participation platform made to citizens. Therefore, we decided to start by creating a platform without any beginner mistakes. Now that everyone feels comfortable with the platform, we launched the next phase: citizens can share their ideas and engage in a conversation with us and each other. In the first phase, we’d only ask them to comment on the ideas we put forward.
Linda Dinkelman, Texel’s Communications advisor
Learn more best practices and guidelines for community engagement:
- Community Engagement: a Practitioner’s Guide: The steps you need to take to create a sustainable and effective community engagement strategy for your government agency.
