Finalising your approach
Project planning: dissemination
Effective community engagement projects include a well thought through communications strategy. Dissemination can help build trust in an organisation and develop joint ownership of a problem and its solution.
Communications should have two broad aims:
- To provide feedback to people who took part in the consultation about what the main findings were. It may also be worthwhile publicising these findings more widely across the community
- To explain what will happen as a result of the findings. You should let people know what changes are to be implemented, and explain why you have chosen to implement them. You will often also need to explain why you have chosen not to take certain actions
An effective communications strategy will disseminate consultation findings and intended actions in a number of different ways. This may include using a mixture of:
- Public events
- Reports: these should be provided in an accessible summary form as well, if main report is long and technical
- Newsletters: an existing organisational newsletter or newspaper may exist which could be used for this
- Internet: it should be easy to find the outcomes and intended actions on your own organisational website
- Posters/ leaflets
- Local press and broadcast media
While the main messages across all communications should be consistent, it may be necessary to tailor how that message is communicated to different types of audiences.
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