community engagement services
Governments, organizations and companies turn to Goff Public to help them meaningfully connect with their communities. From complex, multi-year efforts to smaller projects, we bring a creative, people-first approach.
What is community engagement?
Community engagement is a two-way dialogue with community members who could be impacted by a project, issue or opportunity. People need to understand why a project is happening and how it will impact them before they can take in the details, provide feedback and champion your project. Effective public involvement strategies help you:
- Gather feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders
- Elevate the voices of traditionally underrepresented groups
- Evaluate a project through a community lens
- Communicate with stakeholders every step of the way
Our approach
Get to know your audiences
Successful community engagement begins with identifying your audiences.
Knowing who you are trying to reach will inform the tools and messages you use. We also work to identify any barriers to reaching certain groups and brainstorm creative ways to connect with them.
Put the 'why' before the 'what'
It’s easy to stick to the facts when communicating about a project—the type of work that will be done, how long it will take, or how much it will cost. But these facts aren’t the most important messages for community engagement. We focus our messaging on the real-life benefits and impacts to start from a place of shared understanding.
Forge community relationships
Trust is paramount when asking communities for their time and feedback—especially if they’ve had experiences that lead them to believe they won’t be listened to.
We partner with leaders and organizations that community members know and trust to facilitate information sharing and provide insights and feedback on the project.
Look for the gaps
A key part of our process is continually evaluating to make sure you’re reaching your audiences.
- Are the tools and feedback mechanisms being used?
- What haven’t we heard?
- Who haven’t we heard from?
- What misconceptions or misinformation are we hearing?
Flexibility is key. If something isn’t working, we reevaluate our plan and messaging, and make space for your audiences in the process.
Continue the two-way dialogue
Community engagement is successful when all parties are communicating with each other and listening to concerns. Through ongoing discussions, we identify and manage conflicts that arise with affected audiences.
Why partner with Goff?
We lead public involvement communications projects or partner with other consultants to meet project and audience needs. We bring a multidisciplinary team to execute creative, impactful and seamless communications and public involvement campaigns. Connect with Sara Swenson to learn more about our community engagement capabilities.
