Breaking the Engagement Box

It's important that innovative ideas get shared -- it's a way of keeping the soil fertile in the field. Our Community Development Department at the City of Tigard has grown tired of project-based community engagement. We think the community has too. Every time we crank up a public meeting for a project or program, we find ourselves in the same old roles, with the same kind of participation. A lot of work for everyone, including the community. Difficult to access. Low diversity. This is a problem that plagues many organizations committed to public engagement and DEIB work.

Last week we launched a new idea -- the first in a series of "Get-Together's." These are public meetings that break the box. Judging from the great turnout and warm response we had at the opener, I think we might be on to a better model. Here's what was different:

• We didn't build the agenda around projects. We built it around socializing. We set up the room and the agenda for casual conversations.
• Our focus was on hosting and welcoming, making people feel immediately comfortable and signaling that this wasn't a typical public meeting.
• This included a "mocktail" hour (20 minutes, actually), and dinner. Serving dinner unquestionably increased turnout.
• It also included bilingual interpretation, materials in spanish and english, kids' activities and comfortable options for introverts.
• About a dozen of us from the Community Development team were there, intermingling and introducing ourselves, and, when conversations naturally turned toward subject matter in areas of individual expertise, our teammates.
• The only presentations we made were to explain what we were trying to accomplish, which was to start a new and sustained conversation between the city and the community about community values and Tigard's future.
• We had a couple of structured activities (and opt-out options) in the second hour that allowed more interaction between our participants and our staff.
• Instead of a wrap-up from us about the content we gathered, we asked for the particpants to close the meeting by commenting on the format, and process suggestions for the next "Get-Together." The positivity was astonishing.

This approach can't replace all of our public meetings -- we still have a need for committees on certain projects, and we have standing committees. But what came out of this one meeting was truly surprising and generative. Letting participants drive the conversations, ensuring that we had enough city folks there to be good listeners, and enabling so many conversations to happen at once, allowed for an exchange of respectful and rich information about Tigard's community development prospects. As hoped, we began to hear what people really wanted to say about our work, and about their community. And this was after only a couple hours together.

Our next Get-Together is in August and we expect that several of our participants will return, likely with friends. People actually had fun. My strongest impression was gratitude -- the room had a different energy. People were happy to be together in a relaxed and welcoming space. There was appreciation for what the city was trying to do. There was a diversity of interests and languages that was held by the space and the format. The staff was incredibly relieved to be out of their professional straightjackets and into real, human interactions with the people we work for.

And the stakes were low. What didn't work well, we will try to do better at the next one. And at the one after that.

The big take-away: people want to engage in community and on development. But leading with Projects doesn't allow for real engagement with the whole community, about the whole community.

To be continued....