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Welcome to the module on engagement methods.
In previous modules, we discussed the definitions of engagement and stakeholders. We have talked about how to identify who the stakeholders are in your community. We have also examined a model that can be used to assess the stakeholders. That was the power interest grid.
In this module, we will talk about how to engage people.
There are many different engagement techniques that can be used. It can sometimes seem overwhelming as you try to match engagement methods with the type of stakeholders that you’ve identified. Let’s look at some tools that will help you decide which engagement messages are best for your situation.
In this module we are first going to look at what engagement message are available to you. We will make a list of common engagement techniques.
Next we will look at how to match engagement techniques to the type of stakeholders that you’ve identified and assessed in previous steps. We will then discuss how to set up the engagements.
Finally, we will discuss how to record your engagement and why that is very important.
There are many ways to engage with stakeholders.
Some of the techniques work better than others for certain stakeholders. The stakeholder assessment that you have done will indicate there are people who you need to have regular contact with and there are others who want to be kept informed. Different tools work well for different stakeholders,
We will look at how to match the engagement technique with the type of stakeholder.
It is important to remember that there are three purposes of engagement.
The first purpose is to inform people. That is simply telling people about the project because they want to know what is proposed and what is going on. But these may be low-interest people with no questions or suggestions regarding the project. They want to know what is being proposed in their community.
The second purpose of engagement is to engage. In this scenario, you are telling people about the project and gathering their input as stakeholders. These people may have higher interest than those you were going to inform. But they do not need a tremendous level of detail because they will not be making the ultimate decision of whether the project will go ahead or not.
The third purpose of engagement is to empower people. Decision-makers must have all the information they need to make the right decision. The engagement must provide those stakeholders with details, assessments, and answers to their questions.
On the slide is a list of five different engagement methods. In fact, there are many more than five. But these five methods can be seen as categories. For example, face-to-face meetings can be one-on-one meetings with very important stakeholders. They can be a small group meeting, like a presentation to the municipal council, or they could be visits to neighbours at their homes to provide information and answer any questions. They could even be phone calls or emails.
So there’s flexibility in how these engagement messages are employed, but there are five categories.
The first is face-to-face meetings, which are best for stakeholders with high power, such as decision-makers who need the correct information and all the information required to make a proper decision.
In the newsletters category, there can be electronic newsletters bulletins, emails, or other simple written material sent to stakeholders to keep them informed. These people’s interest may be low or high, but they are not decision-makers, so they don’t have power. Newsletters can keep them informed at a level appropriate to their level of interest.
Online presentations are similar to newsletters; however, they present the information directly to people using electronic means. Examples are video newsletters and webinars. They are very effective for the keep informed group.
Public meetings are meetings where the public is invited to attend an event where there will be a presentation on important information, and people will have an opportunity to ask questions, make suggestions and raise concerns with people proposing a project.
Community liaison committees are formed by inviting stakeholders to sit on a committee with regular meetings to discuss the project, raise concerns that may arise and try to resolve them, and keep regular information flowing.
Let’s look at how we matched these different techniques with the type of stakeholders we have and how to use the techniques.
Face-to-face meetings are best for people with power, like those who can make decisions. They are normally closed-door meetings, which allows for frank discussion and sharing of concerns and issues. It is not a matter of trying to hide information. It is simply that frank discussions are less complicated when there is no audience.
Face-to-face meetings may be held several times during an engagement process. They are an excellent way to keep decision-makers informed and to brief public officials who will be required to answer questions from the public.
You should always ask decision-makers how best to keep them informed and encourage them to reach out if they have any issues, concerns, or questions.
Do not consider this type of engagement as lobbying. It provides the decision-makers and people with power with the information that they need to do their jobs. There are plenty of opportunities for others in public to learn about the project through other engagement methods you would use. Face-to-face meetings are simply an effective way of keeping decision-makers informed.
Face-to-face meetings are also effective for steak welders who may be affected more than others by the project. For example, it is good practice to visit nearby landowners and businesses that may be impacted by traffic, noise, lights, or competition to use shoreline and water resources, perhaps for recreational purposes.
Newsletters are an effective method for providing information to those interested in the project, but they do not have decision-making power.
Newsletters can inform a wider audience of the plans for a project and keep them up-to-date as the project is being implemented. Many people want to know what is happening in their community but don’t necessarily want to get involved. Newsletters can keep people informed and provide an increased overall understanding of what is being proposed for the community.
Newsletters are best in electronic form because they are easily distributed, and it is convenient for people to subscribe or unsubscribe from them.
When writing a newsletter, keep it clear and simple. Avoid jargon and technical terms, anything that may be confusing. Write in a conversational tone, as if you were discussing the project with your neighbor or a friend.
It is a good idea to provide contact information for people who want to reach out for more information. It shows that you were willing to engage more with them if they want to, and it may be an opportunity to avoid confusion and unnecessary concern in the community.
Liberal use of photos and graphics makes a newsletter more engaging and effective.
Keep in mind that newsletters are one-way communication.
In some cases, engaging people through a live webinar or an online meeting may make sense. Another approach is to record a presentation and make it available for viewing at the convenience of members of the public.
Consider this a more modern and personal approach to publishing and distributing a newsletter.
These webinars and video presentations make accessing information easy for most community members. It is more likely that the people who will watch these presentations are high-interest people, but it works for anyone with an Internet connection.
If you use this approach, be sure you are familiar with setting security options for live events like webinars. These options include muting people, turning cameras off, and being able to remove obstructive viewers. The platforms commonly used, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, provide security tools. You or someone on your team must know how to use them.
For new marine site applications, aquaculture regulations require a public meeting.
A public meeting allows people in the community to learn about the project and ask questions. Depending on the size of the community, public meetings can be quite large, with hundreds of people attending.
There are two forms of public meetings: Town Hall and Open House.
Town Hall meetings typically are set up in a lecture format where the proponent is at the front of the room facing an audience sitting in rows, like the photograph shows.
There are a few significant disadvantages to this format. One is that a few people can easily hijack the meeting. In larger groups, one or two microphones are usually available to the audience to ask questions. It is a simple matter for people opposed to the project to organize members of the group to go to the microphones at the beginning of the meeting, stand in line, and ensure that only they get to ask questions or make speeches. This is a common tactic of opposition groups. This reduces the opportunity for other members of the public to ask questions. There is also an inherent inefficiency in conducting engagement this way. When only one person can speak at a time, it is likely that in a two-hour town hall meeting, only a handful of people in the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions.
Although Town Hall meetings can work, they should be avoided. Instead, an open house format should be used.
Open House meetings, on the other hand, make it much more difficult for people to hijack the meeting. Open houses are not in lecture format. Instead, they comprise a series of stations where information is available to participants who visit the stations of interest. At each station, people from the project team are there to answer any questions community members may have.
The photo shows how a typical open house is set up.
A big advantage of Open Houses is that many people can ask questions at the same time at different stations. This provides better access for people in the community to bring up their concerns and get questions answered. Open Houses have more engagement than Town Hall meetings and are more respectful of all people who attend and seek information.
Many times after an Open House, people will say that they appreciate being able to have a smaller conversation with the proponent. Some people are not comfortable speaking in front of a large group. And some people may be reluctant to raise questions or even to show support for a project when they feel that there may be a hostile reaction from members of the wrong community.
Keep in mind that some people may push back against having an open house instead of a Town Hall meeting. Typically, those people may have intended to hijack the Town Hall meeting and are upset that their plans have been frustrated.
Open Houses should always be preferred over Town Hall meetings.
The final method we will look at is Community Liaison Committees or CLCs.
CLCs are best for the keep informed and manage closely people.
A CLC is a group of stakeholders who meet regularly to discuss the project. The CLC meetings allow members to raise concerns that may arise in the community. They are also an opportunity to discuss ways of mitigating those concerns.
Committee members must be committed to returning to their represented stakeholders to keep them informed of what is happening at the community liaison committee. They are also tasked with bringing to the meetings any concerns they hear about in the community. For example, a commercial fisher on the committee may bring concerns of the fishing community to the table and inform the other fishers of resolutions of the concern determined at the CLC meeting.
Community Liaison Committees can be very effective. They enable direct discussion between the proponent in the community.
They require a much more significant effort for engagement.
You must keep records for all engagements.
At some time, you will be asked how much engagement you have done. The best response is to pull out a binder full of records for each engagement you’ve undertaken. This is critical to successful engagement and demonstration of your efforts.
Let’s look at how we document the different engagements.
It is important, vitally important, that you document every contact you have during the engagement. When you were asked if you engaged the public, you should be able to pull out a binder of documents that record every contact you made, from phone calls to emails to discussions with a neighbour, to public meetings and meetings with public officials. The bigger that binder is the better it indicates the work you put into community engagement. So let’s look at how you document some of these engagement activities.
For public meetings, have sign-in sheets and encourage people to fill them out. This will show how many people have attended. Also, ask them to fill out an evaluation sheet after the event. Get them to do it right there. They are unlikely to do it at home and send it in, despite good intentions.
You should also have copies of the promotion that you have done to let people know about the public meeting. Take photos at the meeting to show how many people are there. Count the number of names on the attendee sign-in sheets and record them.
Every time you meet with individual or small group, record the time and date that you had the contact. Take notes about what was discussed and commitments that you made to get back to them on questions you may not have been able to answer at the time. Also document when you did get back to them.
Even if you were not able to have a discussion with them, make note of your attempts to contact them. Showing the effort is important.
Documenting newsletters and online webinar meetings is pretty straightforward. Print copies of newsletters that you have and stuff them into your binder.
For electronic recordings of webinars and online meetings, just keep a list of them and where they are stored. Include the time of the webinar and how many people attended.
For all of these records for all of the engagements put them into a big binder or a big file folder.
At some time, when someone asks you if you did much engagement with the public, drop that big binder on the table with a loud phone and say yes we reached out to the public because that was an important component of our project.
That concludes the engagement course.
Good luck on your community engagement!
