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Inclusive Engagement for Community Planning

Inclusive community engagement is a key process for ensuring that the Department of Local Affairs benefits Coloradans in an equitable manner, and for helping our local partners achieve the same. 

Expanding community engagement to incorporate all voices improves project outcomes, reduces impacts, fosters partnership and collaboration, and taps into the community’s wisdom as a whole, improving governance across the board. 

Through several years of establishing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) practices at DOLA, we have begun incorporating an expectation of inclusive community engagement into our funding guidelines, technical assistance, and best local government practices. 

This guide is intended to assist local agencies in the development of best practices for inclusive community engagement, not only through formal requirements for specific grant-funded projects, such as a comprehensive plan, but also to encourage good governance through robust public participation in ongoing activities such as annual budgeting, capital improvement planning, and policy creation.

Community Engagement Basics

Community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with community members to address issues that impact their well-being. It seeks to better engage the community as a whole to achieve long-term and sustainable outcomes, processes, relationships, discourse, decision-making, and/or implementation.

Good community engagement is a continuous cycle of 

  • education - ensuring the community knows what is happening
  • input - seeking thoughts on policy and project formation, and
  • evaluation - asking about the process and implementation to improve education and input. 

Engagement should be transparent (clear about purpose and use), authentic (using the input requested), and appropriate (engage in a way that gets results).

Whole community inclusion has great benefits - more fair and effective policies and initiatives; more ideas and perspectives; and more innovative solutions. When people see that their input is valued and has an impact, they are more likely to feel connected to their community and invested in its well-being. An engaged and united community is a resilient community where the trust between the people and the government leads to long-term success.

An inclusive community engagement approach should be utilized with any public project or planning that affects community members’ lives, whether on a large scale (such as a comprehensive plan or an infrastructure project that involves road closures), or smaller scale (such as a neighborhood park or recreation programming). Sufficient funds should be budgeted to support inclusive engagement.

Things to think about:

  • What are the goals of the project?
  • How much does the community know about the project and its impact?
  • What decisions have already been made?
  • What decisions could the community inform?
  • How will community engagement fit into the project timeline?
  • Is there the capacity (including budget)  to perform good public engagement? 

How to Plan for Inclusive Engagement

Who Makes Up Your Community?

To ensure a balance of voices from your community, it is important to know who is in your community. Fortunately, the Department of Local Affairs is home to the State Demography Office, which can provide a fantastic overview of who makes up your community - gender, age, race, ethnicity, mobility, income, commuting in/out, and more. 

For example, if your community is predominantly young families, but you are hearing primarily from retirees (or vice versa), how might that impact thoughts on schools, parks, accessibility, and senior housing? 

  • Develop a community network analysis. 
    • Trusted community leaders from nonprofits, faith groups, schools, and industry can help people feel comfortable and motivated to participate.
    • Utilize the Community Heart & Soul’s Network Analysis Tool to develop an initial analysis at the very beginning of your process not only to determine who is in the community and how to reach them, but also to establish a leadership team that mirrors your region’s demographics.
  • Identify groups impacted and affected. 
    • Who does a specific planning effort or project affect most, and how, both now and in the future? 
    • Who benefits the most, and who benefits the least? 
    • What is the driving factor behind this project and its priority? 
  • Be sure to identify groups who are or were underrepresented in public decisions.

Tactics and Techniques

Tactics and techniques will vary depending on the reasons you are engaging (from providing information or empowering decisions), who you are engaging (from youth to retirees), and what the project is (from a comprehensive plan to park design). Many times, multiple approaches will be used for a single project.

Engagement strategies should seek to be dynamic, adaptive, and responsive to resident needs and circumstances. Consider transportation, language, technological, and physical barriers that limit access to information and active engagement for socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, community members with disabilities, youth, parents, the elderly, and communities of color, as well as costs and logistical considerations.

Before engaging with the public, be sure to understand the purpose and goal of engaging the public, which can be along the following spectrum (adapted from the International Association for Public Participation Spectrum of Public Participation).

  • INFORM (provide information) 
    • Goal: Keep people informed. 
      • Good to use for: All government business.
    • Tools: Websites, social media, newsletters, mail, media outlets, community groups, public displays, flyers.
      • not everyone goes online for information
      • social media spans a range from Facebook to TikTok, each with its own demographic
      • leverage existing mailings (such as utility bills) to reduce costs 
      • displays and flyers should go where people gather, from schools to shopping  
    • Tip: Constant communication is the bedrock of all engagement.
  • CONSULT (receive feedback)
    • Goal: Listen to and acknowledge aspirations and concerns.
      • Good to use for: Analysis, alternatives, and/or decisions
    • Tools: Social media, community groups, event booths, engagement meetings, open houses, surveys
      • social media spans a range from Facebook to TikTok, each with its own demographic
      • find community groups and events that, together, reflect the who lives in the community
      • make surveys available online and in print; surveys can also be a part of community group and event engagement
    • Tip: Carefully structure questions 
  • INVOLVE (bring in the public at the earliest stages)
    • Goal: Inform and consult with residents on all phases.
      • Good to use for: Comprehensive and other plans; anywhere early input can make a difference
    • Tools: Focus groups, charrettes, open houses, canvassing
    • Tip: Exploring diverse viewpoints helps to better understand needs and lead to innovative solutions
  • COLLABORATE (work with small groups as decision makers and possible implementers) 
    • Goal: Inform, consult, and collaborate with residents on all phases.
      • Good to use for: Projects impacting distinct groups and/or where partners are key in implementation
    • Tools: Focus groups, engagement meetings
    • Tip: Collaborating with non-profits and leveraging public-private partnerships can add capacity
  • EMPOWER (turn the decision over to the public)
    • Goal: To place final decision-making in the hands of the public and implement what they decide
    • Tools: Citizen juries, ballots, referendums, delegated decisions
    • Tip: Although the government is not the decision-maker in this level of engagement, it is still up to the government to ensure that those affected by the decisions can have input in the process.

Draft an Engagement Plan

[Project]

(Ensure that community input is informed when weighing in on policy development. This practice reduces the chance for severe opposition due to misunderstanding, and can transform would-be opponents to project champions.)

[Identify Key Partners]

(Who is most affected by the project? Think about what organizations might assist as community navigators and cultural brokers.)

    Consider: Needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups (or underrepresented)

(Who are good allies?)

(Who are the detractors? What might make them allies or neutral?)

[Determine Key Decision Points]

(What decisions have already been made?)

(Who will make decisions?)

(What is the role of the public?)

    Consider: What commitments have been made and what can be truly influenced by the engagement.

[Identify Engagement Tactics and Techniques]

(Choose how to engage (Inform, Consult, Involve, Collaborate, Empower) based on the role the public has in decision-making. 

Consider: Your capacity, from staff time to budget, including any food, translators, or printing costs (as well as any restrictions grant dollars might have on these costs, such as purchasing food). 

    Consider: Having a communications plan for your engagement activities (i.e., how will people know when and how to engage?)

    Consider: What barriers might different groups face in participating, and how can that be mitigated?

[Analyze and Update]

(Engage key partners to identify any changes needed, including who the strategy might miss.)

[Implement]

(Implement community outreach and engagement plan in collaboration with partners.)

(Evaluate input and correct course if not receiving feedback from broader community.)

(Summarize and share input back to participants and public.)

Tip: Allow for comments and summarize and share again as a best practices

[Close the Loop]

(Make final decisions known.)

(Measure success.)

(Evaluate - Who was not engaged? What unexpected opposition existed and who felt left out?)

Resources

Tools for Identifying Marginalized Communities and Vulnerable Populations 

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