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Community Engagement: Online Options in Critical Times

Online access can provide organizations and governments with a wide range of options for effective engagement

Updated:

April 6, 2020

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Community Engagement: Online Options in Critical Times

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For more than a decade, businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and organizations have increasingly come to come to recognize the opportunities presented by online and social media tools to effectively engage their stakeholders and residents. Depending on their goals, online access can provide organizations and governments with a wide range of options for effectively engaging their stakeholders in discussions, gathering input, fostering deliberation, and informing decision-making. Perhaps these tools and opportunities have never been more important as they are in times of community crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic when so many of our 'normal' channels of communicating have been so dramatically interrupted.

To make the most of these opportunities, however, organizations and decision-makers need to be as strategic and thoughtful as they can be in terms of their goals, technological capabilities, available time, and stakeholder characteristics. While a thorough review of the range of options and the pros and cons of each is beyond the intent of this brief article, there are some important key considerations to keep in mind.

The first, and most critical consideration for any organization or government looking to undertake an online engagement effort is to identify its specific engagement goals and how these goals align with its mission or purpose. Here, the widely recognized engagement spectrum developed by the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) is particularly useful. The idea here is to be as purposeful and strategic about an organization's engagement goals and strategies as possible – before considering the most appropriate type of tool or approach.

Inform: one-way communication primarily designed to provide information about an issue. Online examples include fact sheets, recorded sessions, webinars, blogs, vlogs (video blogs), websites, or social media
Consult: gather input, opinions, and ideas on the issue or process from the stakeholders. Online examples include electronic public comment options, surveys, online focus groups, Facebook groups, Twitter and other social media platforms
Involve: include stakeholder's opinions and ideas into the proposed solutions. Online examples here include polling, discussion boards and forums, online meetings, various social media, crowd sourcing web-based tools and conference calls.
Collaborate: engage stakeholders in complex problem-solving processes through dialogue and deliberation. Online examples include wiki-based platforms, various team document sharing, and project management software (Trello, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Docs, etc.) Zoom and other meeting platforms, participatory decision-making software, crowd-sourcing web-based tools, and various social media platforms.
Empower: foster decision-making authority or responsibility for implementing a solution to stakeholders. Online examples include online consensus tools, ballots, citizen juries and a wide range of discussion boards, blogs, and similar tools

Second, it's important to be sure that the tools and strategies an organization chooses are consistent with their engagement goals and appropriate for the stakeholders or audiences with whom they hope to interact. Considerations here include:

How do they expect stakeholders and residents to interact with the tools and strategies they develop?
To what extent are the tools they employ appropriate for their intended audience in terms of access, ease of use, user experience, and personal preferences?

Regardless of which approach an organization or agency chooses, tips like these from Oregon's Kitchen Table are invaluable.

Keep your efforts simple. In non-crisis times, there are all kinds of interesting and new approaches that you could test or try out. Now your resources are probably strained under tight timelines.
What tools or resources are you already using that can be deployed in some way to allow community members to respond?
Whatever tool you're using, try to present ideas and questions in as simple language as possible and consider what languages besides English you need to make available.
A lot of public engagement is about organizing people to actually participate, whether that's at an in-person meeting or online. Put together a core group of people who can reach out to multiple networks to help spread the word. Recognize that in a time of crisis--especially one that involves social distancing--community members may be less interested in participating.
The best way to get people to participate online is through a single subject email from one person inviting their network of friends.
The second most effective way is through Facebook.
No matter what method you use (email, Facebook, etc.), remember three things:
- Keep it short and simple.
- Include the link(s) that people should go to.
- Ask them to ask others to join them.

Regardless of which approach an organization takes, its online engagement efforts are more likely to be successful when they've had the opportunity to build a relationship and establish trust with their stakeholders prior to developing an online strategy. In cases when this has not been possible – such as a crisis like COVID-19 when you need to quickly solicit ideas, input, or identifying needs from those your organization, community, or government serves – the principles that apply to effective engagement, in general, are still essential to success. These include ensuring engagement efforts are carefully planned; inclusive of all community members as possible; acknowledge a shared purpose; create an environment of openness and learning; create transparency and trust-building; focus on the impact and action that is important to constituents; and foster a participatory culture for the long-term.