Recently, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a client on a community relations initiative. The goal was to bring partners together and to showcase community health resources and partners. We wanted to increase awareness, strengthen partnerships and support a more community-centric dialogue around health care.
The event was great. Partners connected with community members and amongst themselves. Community members were able to ask questions, learn and interact in fun ways with quizzes, a scavenger hunt, colouring contest and giveaways.
Community relations is all about building trust and relationships. It was Stephen Covey who wrote “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything,” and he is right. When you have trust and relationships, it can change everything. People start to believe positive change is possible, they see they are not alone in their concern, and they start to move from “the problem” to “our challenge”. Now, one event doesn’t change everything overnight, but it’s a solid foundation to building a community relations program. If you are keen to start building a community relations program, we can help and would be excited to provide support. Here are five ideas for where and how to start.
- Identify the people, groups and organizations with whom you want to build a relationship. Start to develop your contact list. It doesn’t need to be fancy – it can be in Excel, but start documenting contact information for those with whom you are seeking to build a relationship.
- Start one-on-one. One of the most powerful tools in community relations is a latte! Ask people if they’d be willing to connect over a coffee. It doesn’t have to be a “big” meeting with all the groups, in fact it’s better if it’s not right at the start. Inviting conversation and personal connection is a great start.
- Focus on listening. When you start reaching out to organizations, get really good at listening. This is your golden opportunity to listen and learn, to be curious and to understand what they are most interested in, concerned about or passionate to contribute to.
- As you start to build relationships, start to think about how you can be a good partner. Are there events you can attend or support? Where does the community celebrate? Are there foundations or community-driven boards that you can volunteer your expertise on?
- Build your community relations go-bag. Participating in community events, fairs, festivals and celebrations is a big lift, but a go-bag helps a lot. Think about consolidating your banners, signage, swag, games, and giveaways. Start to develop checklists and onboarding supports to help other team members connect with the community. At the event we supported a few weeks ago, for many partners agreeing to attend the event was easy because they had a “kit” or “setup” and could quickly activate.
In our courses, we often talk about how communications is a prerequisite for engagement and that we can communicate and NOT engage, but we can’t engage without communicating. This remains true, but if we dig a little deeper the reality is that organizations who are trusted and who have relationships are able to quickly and meaningfully engage with their community because they are known to each other. Start small, don’t over complicate it, and get ready to connect with community members, groups and organizations so that you can build trust and relationships… these are the real currency in engagement.