As we celebrate 30 years at Engage Delaney, there are a few things that have really changed in community engagement over three decades and one that has not.
- The speed: Over 30 years, some things have gotten a lot faster, and the pace of the engagement has sped up. Whereas we might have had a few months to do a series of national round tables, they are now done in a few compressed weeks. Whereas doing “by hand coding” took days and days, now there is a quicker more efficient ways to code and identify emerging themes.
- The professionals: There weren’t that many engagement professionals 30 years ago! We worked with policy leads, program specialists and people who were experts in just about everything except engagement. Over the decades, we’ve seen a professionalization of the sector and how engagement and communications professionals have gone from being few and far between to core internal team members.
- The creativity: Whether it’s new professionals joining the sector, more access to technology, or a more interdisciplinary approach, the actual methods of engagement have gotten more creative. Years ago, we supported a lot of advisory groups, designed a lot of surveys and workshops, and always worked to bring in creative approaches to collaboration. Today, we use different technology, visual methods, art-based approaches to youth engagement, graphic recording, animation and more and it creates more dynamic engagement opportunities.
- The people: In the late 90s, and early 2000s, engagement was largely between organizations and other organizations or “key stakeholders” or the “public”. The people we engage with today are more diverse, bring vastly different perspectives and bring with them their lived experiences. It is only over the last decade that we have really been able to do deep engagement in the areas of health and housing and working to engage those who have deep wisdom of their own life experiences. The engagement processes of today are increasingly becoming more equitable, and more person and community centered.
- The expectations: In the past, engagement sometimes felt like a “nice to do” or a check to see if it was “required”, or sometimes, “oops that didn’t work, let’s try again”. Thirty years later, engagement is increasingly the norm and there’s an expectation of decision makers, staff and communities that there will be engagement. It’s not to say the expectations are always shared, but there is likely closer alignment than there was 30 years ago!
What hasn’t changed through these past 30 years is the need to build trust-based relationships both internally and with external communities.