Engaging Stakeholders & Communities

Engage. Define. Create.

 

 

Effective stakeholder and community engagement facilitates understanding between the decision maker and those affected by the decision, issue or opportunity. Collective Possibilities uses highly developed facilitation skills to assess and understand barriers to effective engagement and then works with individuals or groups to embed core engagement techniques.

Multiple perspectives can contribute to a deeper understanding of issues and result in better decisions, more sustainable solutions. Sustainable solutions are those that are:

  • Publicly acceptable
  • Economically viable
  • Technically feasible
  • Environmentally compatible

 

Positive engagement strategies can also assist your organisation by helping you to identify critical issues early and harness public and stakeholder support for your project. This leads to smoother implementation and wider acceptance.

For many organisations however, the challenge to make these connections seems daunting. This is where we can help by delivering innovative engagement strategies that foster:

  • Integrity – when there is openness and honesty about the scope and purpose of engagement
  • Inclusion – when there is an opportunity for a diversity of perspectives to be freely and fairly expressed and heard
  • Deliberation – when there is sufficient and credible information for dialogue, choice and decisions and when there is space to weigh options, develop common understandings and to appreciate respective roles and responsibilities

 

Collective Possibilities upholds the IAP2 core values and planning processes. We use this framework to customise an engagement strategy that fits with your organisation or community needs. We have extensive experience in facilitating advisory committees, public forums, open houses, workshops, focus groups, interviews and information sessions.