I recently attended the second module of my International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Certificate of Engagement, where I was lucky enough to meet a wonderful mix of engagement professionals who were also seeking to further their learning.
My experience over the two days got me thinking that for a long time, engaging with communities and stakeholders was often a transactional process. Perhaps you were obligated by law to seek the community’s views on a new development, or you ran a stock-standard town hall or drop-in session (often at times inaccessible to some groups), so that you could say you’d provided an opportunity for people to talk to someone on the project team if they had an issue.
However, it’s clear to me that in 2025, engagement must now also be relational. When planning out how we’re going to engage, we should put ourselves in the shoes of our audience – whether it’s a local resident, an environmental group or a local MP – and think about how we can encourage genuine, meaningful interactions.
You can ensure that people are at the heart of your engagement strategy in a variety of ways, for example:
- Develop objectives that define the experience you want people to have, as well as the information you’re seeking to uncover. Sometimes that can be as simple as ensuring that a group feels seen and heard during the process.
- Choose your engagement method carefully – Your chosen methods should be determined by the audience and the level of influence they’re being invited to have on the project. And remember, people are individuals and not everyone wants to engage in the same way. Some prefer to carefully consider their feedback and provide written responses, while others enjoy a verbal debate, so it’s best practice to provide options.
- Don’t be afraid to try new things – While I’ve been in the engagement space for some time, the session was a great refresher on just how many different methods we have at our disposal. For example, running a ‘card storming’ process – where participants generate ideas on cards and then work together to collectively look for themes – can help groups extract meaning from data and inform next steps. While we can often fall back on a tried-and-trusted survey or workshop format, it was helpful to be reminded of the multitude of ways to draw out information and points of view.
- Always close the loop by reporting back to your audiences on how their views have been taken on board. This helps participants feel appreciated and reassures them that their input was valuable to the process.
While the above pointers may not come as a surprise, they can be a helpful checklist to aid in our planning. We should ultimately ask ourselves; what experience wouldIexpect to have if it was me being engaged with?
I’m looking forward to completing my Certificate of Engagement later this year and helping clients face engagement challenges with renewed energy and new ideas.