Let’s Change Culture: From Extraction to Enrichment
Defining True Community Engagement
In our Let's Change Culture discussions, we explored how the term "community engagement" is often misused or misunderstood, particularly by local authorities and organisations. True community engagement involves meaningful dialogue, trust-building, and agency for participants, but this isn’t always what people experience.
Community engagement can be defined as the process of working collaboratively with community members to address issues that impact their lives. It involves open, honest dialogue and a genuine willingness to listen and act upon feedback. Real engagement is about involving people from the beginning and creating shared ownership of outcomes.
However, many of the practices labeled as "engagement" fall short. The group noted a tendency to conflate communication or consultation with engagement, leading to passive or superficial interactions:
Newsletters and Social Media: While these are effective tools for information sharing, they are largely one-way and lack genuine interaction.
Neighborhood Meetings & Stakeholder Emails: Often, these are used to provide updates or gather limited feedback, but they don’t necessarily involve the community in decision-making.
Activity Days & Exhibitions: These can draw a crowd, especially with children-focused activities, but they sometimes miss the mark in creating authentic, ongoing dialogue.
Stalls at Events and Door-Knocking: These are often seen as attempts to tick the "engagement" box rather than opportunities to build relationships and trust.
Participants noted that even methods like public meetings or consultation events can feel like a formality, with pre-designed plans and little room for meaningful input. This often leaves people feeling that their time and energy are being used solely to justify decisions already made.
Reframing Engagement for Authentic Connection
Authentic engagement goes beyond these standard practices. It focuses on understanding the needs of the community from the start and fostering open and honest dialogue. This requires building trust and relationships over time, which is risky but crucial for genuine connection. As the group pointed out, the goal should be about creating agency for participants rather than fulfilling organizational agendas.
To truly engage means involving people in decision-making processes, respecting their contributions, and co-creating outcomes. This is a far cry from broadcasting information, gathering tailored survey responses, or treating audiences as passive recipients.
By redefining engagement in this way, we can move towards practices that truly value people's time, insights, and experiences. Engagement should be an opportunity for everyone to shape change—not just another word for communication or consultation.
Rethinking Community Engagement: From Extractive to Enriching
While the group explored traditional approaches to community engagement and the recurring feeling that these efforts often fall short. Many participants observed that standard forms of engagement frequently come across as mere formalities—consultations held out of obligation rather than genuine interest in people's insights. There was a shared frustration that, in these processes, decisions feel pre-determined, and feedback is rarely valued or acted upon.
One strong sentiment emerged: it often feels extractive. People described being asked to give their energy and imagination to consultations that ultimately seem designed to fulfil funding requirements or legitimize something already planned by others. This left participants feeling like their contributions were not truly respected or heard.
In contrast, creative engagement offered a refreshing shift. The group agreed that when people engage creatively, there’s a sense of balance in the relationship. Creative activities provide something enjoyable, thought-provoking, or enriching in return for participants’ time and effort. It’s not just about extracting ideas or opinions; it’s about creating an experience that values and rewards people's contributions. This exchange fosters genuine connection and meaningful involvement, ultimately restoring some of the balance that traditional engagement practices often overlook.