Implementing your project
Challenges: communications
Consultation and communications are often seen as separate activities but should really be seen as complementary. Communications can help publicise:
- Community engagement activities
- The outcomes from community engagement
- Actions resulting from community engagement
A good communications strategy can help build trust in an organisation and create a feeling of shared problems and solutions.
When developing a communications strategy:
- Keep it manageable, do not try and be over ambitious
- Identify key activities, milestones and deadlines
- Ensure you have sufficient time to plan and deliver your communications
- Keep messages simple and direct, but do not dumb down
- Tailor your communications to suit the different audiences
- Use different communication methods, for example, press release, summary and main report, newspaper article or news story, webpage
- Think about how you will monitor the effectiveness of your communications
- How much coverage are you getting about your community engagement activities?
- Do people know about your community engagement activities?
- Are people satisfied with how you are engaging with the community?
As with planning your project , it can be useful to develop your communications using a SMART approach. Ensure that they are:
- S pecific
- M easurable
- A chievable
- R elevant
- T ime-bound
For more information on communications, see external communications and dissemination in the Finalising your approach section.
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