How Your Nonprofit Can Foster Meaningful Community Engagement
It is kind of a strange thing, but it happens. We are so determined to meet our organization’s mission and goals yet, somehow, we manage to lose sight of the community we are serving. When we get boxed in by the demands of hitting benchmarks and fielding incoming crises, we can feel the need to shut out the noise from the community outside our walls.
It is a proverbial “slippery slope” that if left unaddressed will reduce your nonprofit’s impact, lead to staff burnout, and ultimately diminish your organization’s relevance. Community engagement – actively involving members of your community in discussions, decisions and activities to benefit the collective – can be labor intensive but may be the only way to ensure your hard work is hitting its target.
Community engagement means building the kind of trust that leads to productive collaboration. It means more than inviting diverse voices to the table to help shape the direction of a nonprofit; it means really listening to what your community is telling you it needs and taking actions that will let them know they’ve been heard. It means working in partnership to solve problems.
As you might have guessed, we are suggesting more than the occasional newsletter or solicitation. Town hall meetings and online forums are great tools for meeting people in your community and learning what is important to them. But don’t stop there! Your aim is to empower people to take an active role in shaping your nonprofit’s response to community needs.
This is no quick fix. You will need to commit time and attention to creating a sustained yet flexible effort. Here is a breakdown of steps to engage your community in a meaningful way:
Define your community. This could be a defined group of stakeholders, such as people impacted by a specific disorder or those who benefit from emergency shelter or food kitchen services. Perhaps it is the more general community, if your focus is on conservation of area rivers or forests.
Understand their “why.” Listen to community members when they share why they are passionate about your cause. This will allow you to identify what matters most to them, where the heartstrings fall, and how to appeal to their desire to help.
Communicate in the best way possible. Find out how your community likes to receive information and capitalize on that – the more informed your community is, the more engagement you’re likely to realize. Note how digital platforms have allowed for a new wave of community engagement. Organizations create online forums and social media groups to gather feedback, foster discussions, and build virtual communities around shared interests or causes. Other stakeholder groups might be more inspired through in-person events, such as meetings in a park setting.
Build partnerships. Aligning with local organizations, leaders and businesses will support community engagement. These partnerships will allow you to leverage valuable resources and support to address community needs. Collaboration will lead to initiatives that create a greater impact.
Create opportunities for active participation. People want to be part of the solution! Provide a variety of avenues through which community members can get involved such as volunteering at events, phone-a-thons, workshops, etc. Make room for community members to feel like they are making a meaningful contribution.
We often limit our definition of human resources to the people who work for our organizations as either paid staff or board and other closely involved volunteers. Expanding your view of what constitutes human resources, or your broader community, opens a whole new world of possibilities. Building, and then leveraging, trusted relationships can foster collaboration that leads to improved services and delivery, long-term sustainability and, ultimately, positive social change.
The More Than Giving Co. can help you build the kind of trust that leads to productive collaboration in your community.
Schedule a call today to learn how we can help.