Month: May 2015

8 Tips to Help You Reach Targeted Populations

It’s no secret – the best public involvement is inclusive and increasingly it is being enforced as a requirement of planning efforts. Agencies around the world each have their own way of describing inclusiveness. In the US the EPA’s term is Environmental Justice (EJ) or Title VI. This requires the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” Because EPA regulations impact transportation and virtually all other public infrastructure planning, these requirements apply to many projects.

Regardless of what jurisdiction you are in, the calls for broader and more inclusive public engagement are likely mounting. At the same time, technology is changing the way we communicate. In response, the use of online public engagement is rapidly expanding, whether it’s on your laptop at home, kiosks in the community center or the smartphone in your pocket. However, when it comes to engaging the EJ community the question is – does technology help or hinder?

Based on case studies we’ve evaluated, it can go either way. If implemented well, technology can close the gap and provide much greater access to the EJ community. If handled poorly, public engagement technology will only widen the divide. The most sensitive groups tend to be low income and minority groups for various reasons including access to technology, language barriers and cultural differences.

The reality is that the EJ community is also often excluded from traditional methods of outreach as well. Many don’t have the time or freedom to attend public workshops or don’t feel comfortable with that form of participation due to language, educational or cultural barriers.

How can we leverage technology to improve engagement and reach the EJ community? Below are 8 strategies that will help you in your outreach efforts to the EJ community.

1. Do your research

When designing your public involvement program, first seek to understand what issues are most important to each of your demographic segments. What are their top priorities? What language do they use to express them?

Sit down and talk with people face-to-face as early as possible. Go to community centers and try to understand what issues they have concerning your project. This will give you the ability to build the content of your engagement program using the metrics and terminology that will resonate with them the most.

2. Communicate what’s at stake and how their input will be used

There will be three questions on people’s minds when they are asked for input:

• What’s at stake?
• Why should I contribute ideas?
• Is there anybody listening?

Most importantly you’ll need a powerful call-to-action (CTA) that convinces them it’s worth the time and effort to participate. These messages will be used in the collateral and communications to encourage the EJ community to get engaged.

How do you write a well-crafted CTA? Use the knowledge you’ve gained from doing your research on community priorities. Once you understand which issues are truly important, it will be easy to create a message that resonates.

If your community is working on a new transportation plan and your research tells you that affordability is a key issue, an effective CTA might be, “Want affordable transportation options? Your input will be used to guide our new city-wide plan.”

Let them know what’s on the table and craft you communications based around their priorities. Make a promise to them about how their input will be used.

3. Go to them

If you’re using a technology solution, make sure it doesn’t entirely depend on your participants coming to your website on their own devices. Be opportunistic – latch on to community events that other groups are planning. Bring kiosks and tablets to community centres, local events and other places where the EJ community members routinely visit. That way even those without access to their own devices can participate.

For many people who don’t have computers, smartphones are often the only online connection that they have. To include these people, make sure that your digital engagement technology is well-optimized for smartphones.

4. Support multiple languages

Naturally if people can’t read your site, it’s a show-stopper. Rather than relying on auto-translation which tends to mangle the meaning of planning concepts, take the time to translate your tool professionally and offer a choice for people on the front page.

If you’re interested in engaging the Vietnamese community, if your site is available in Vietnamese it will be welcoming to them, even if they also speak English. It sets an inviting and inclusive tone.

5. Wherever possible, use visuals

Keep things simple and use images to convey the message. This allows for people with poorer language skills to still get involved and have their voice heard. Visuals also stir emotions very effectively, leading to a more memorable and engaging process.

6. Integrate educational content

Provide education and context for questions that are being asked. Many people don’t feel qualified to have an opinion on complex issues like land use or transportation planning. Educating people about the pros and cons of choices helps empower them to weigh in on these issues and contribute meaningfully.

Be realistic about the questions that you ask. Not everyone knows how to solve planning problems or create solutions.

“What are your priorities?” We love starting with this question. Everybody knows what’s important to them. It also sets a tone that lets people know that you care about their needs. The added benefit of starting with this question is that you can use their answers to shape what they see next according to their top priorities. This is a great way to keep them engaged.

7. Leverage community leaders in promotional activities

When trying to solicit participation, who the message comes from is very important. Keep in mind that the EJ community often feels disenfranchised. In many cases, the Mayor or other city officials may not be the best people to invite the EJ community to participate.

Instead, it may be useful to ask locally trusted leaders of community groups and political representatives that the EJ community trusts to solicit participation. These can include leaders of local religious, community and non-profit organizations that have earned their trust and are aligned with their values and priorities.

8. Collect and monitor demographic information in real-time

Be prepared to adjust your engagement process mid-stream. Don’t plan all events and activities and commit all of your budget in advance. Review your results early on, find out who is missing and fill in the gaps with new strategies and “boots on the ground” efforts.

While online engagement is increasingly effective, there will always be a role for face to face methods. Go to targeted community events where your missing EJ community members will be. Bring paper-based surveys and iPads and engage away.

Sometimes creative strategies are needed. For example in one small community, the project team was struggling to get low income and minority families to participate. A unique strategy was hatched. “At Home Engagement Kits” were distributed. The Town offered to reimburse any pizza receipts for groups of 6 participants or more.

The result? The project engaged over 60% of the population with active participation from the EJ communities that were traditionally missing. What was even more interesting was that the municipality did not have to pay for a single pizza receipt. It seems that the offer was enough to get people started and participating proved to be satisfying enough.

Conclusion

If implemented well, online public engagement has a strong role to play in bridging the gap and allowing the EJ community to have their voice heard. By doing so you can reach a demographic that is more representative of your overall community, and have a powerful source of input to support your plans going forward.

For more information and examples, watch the video below which recaps our recent webinar on best practices for engaging targeted populations.

I think we can agree that the types of people who show up to public meetings are not very representative of the general population. This observation raises an important question. When we design our public engagement process, who should we be targeting?

The keenest and most motivated participants are easy. They will show up no matter what. Unfortunately, there’s few of them and they usually hold rigid, extreme, and often negative opinions. The rest of the population are either less motivated, too busy for public meetings, or both.

For public planning projects, it’s a crying shame because these folks can be the most constructive and supportive voices in the community if only we can find a way to engage them. For this reason, people who are less likely to participate are the most important targets of designing a broad and inclusive engagement program.

Why do the public seem so angry?

For any project that impacts the public, there will always be people strongly in favor and strongly opposed. Too often we only end up hearing from the folks who are strongly opposed. The reasoning is simple: anger or fear of a proposed project are excellent motivators. These people will go to great lengths to voice their opposition.

Happiness or satisfaction, it turns out, are often not enough to encourage someone to get off the couch. People don’t often march in support of something.

The last group, the vast majority of the population in most cases, are the moderates who are the most open-minded and have not yet formed a strong opinion. These people will base their decision on real information from both sides of the debate. The trouble is that it’s very tricky to engage them.

Where are the moderates?

In most communities, what the average person thinks about an issue is a mystery. It’s become politically incorrect to talk about our values publically and since most people don’t participate in civic events, project leaders are often in the dark about their views. All too often that leaves the decisions to be influenced by the folks with extreme and often minority views.

Why are the moderates less likely to participate? Here is what we’ve heard repeatedly:

1. They are too busy and don’t have time to attend public meetings,
2. They don’t have strong feelings about the planning process,
3. They don’t feel qualified to have an opinion, or
4. They are supportive of the agency and feel confident in the direction they are taking.

Since these are the very people who are most likely to provide constructive feedback, it’s critical to find ways to engage them.

How to reach the average person

The most effective way to engage these people is to address the obstacles that are keeping them from engaging – thus lowering the barriers as much as possible.

Online engagement tools can be a very effective way to accomplish this, making it easier to reach out, engage your community and collect informed input. When implemented with care they can provide an easy and fast way for even the least motivated to get involved and provide informed feedback.

What happened when Tampa tried online engagement?

During the Imagine 2040 Hillsborough project, our client assumed that the majority of their local community were in favour of the current state of the region: automobile-oriented, low-density urban sprawl with virtually no new development occurring near job centers. This assumption was based on what they were used to hearing from the “public” at traditional workshops and meetings.

The shock came when they used MetroQuest to educate people about the pros and cons of planning options and then collect their feedback on preferred scenarios online. After receiving over 250,000 votes, comments and other data points from a broad demographic, they were shocked to see that over 80% of participants were actually in favor of a much more densely populated downtown core with extensive public transportation options and support for cyclists.

The unprecedented public input led to the unanimous adoption of the new regional plan and has expedited its implementation. They have already approved one of Florida’s first bike share programs and transit-oriented development in several key hubs.

This example did a great job addressing the most important barriers to participation:

• They made it easy and fast to participate using any device, and even provided kiosks in community centers for those without computers or smartphones,
• They provided tools in multiple languages to accommodate a diverse population,
• They educated people about the impacts of alternatives in terms that resonated with their priorities, and
• They presented alternatives visually to make it easy to understand what’s at stake.

While each project is different, the patterns discussed here apply to communities across the continent. Don’t underestimate the importance of engaging the moderates in your community. They could hold the key to success for your public engagement process.

For tips and best practices on how to use online engagement tools effectively, download our new guidebook here.