Hearing vs. Listening: Tips for Meaningful Community Engagement
Without a clear goal or purpose, civic community engagement can feel transactional at best, or at worst, like widening the divide between city government and the people it’s meant to serve.
bi3 director Jena Bradley and I shared active listening strategies with the City of Cincinnati’s internal “Engagement Champions” so they felt equipped to listen to community members’ concerns, respond authentically without lip service, and make community members feel seen and heard.
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Priya Parker's The New Rules of Gathering Guide (free digital resource) and her book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters.
Groundwork USA's Best Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement — tips for engaging historically underrepresented communities in visioning and planning
Beyond Sticky Notes - great resources and insights on how to shift your engagements toward "ownership" on the community engagement spectrum
Design Impact's Metathemes - the deeper human needs that often show up when designing in civic and public service work and broader calls to action to address those needs
Civilla's Storytelling and Engagement Courses - online self-paced courses on stakeholder engagement and storytelling from a design organization in Detroitxt goes here
