Community Engagement is the process by which citizens are engaged to work and learn together on behalf of their communities to create and realize bold visions for the future. Community Engagement can involve informing citizens about your initiative, inviting their input, collaborating with them to generate solutions, and partnering with the community from the beginning to tackle community issues together. Community Engagement increases community cohesion and allows for the community to have ownership over the outcomes that will ultimately impact them.
Tamarack is uniquely positioned to act as a bridge between theory and practice. We apply the theory to community contexts and teach and coach organizations, municipalities and groups to engage their communities meaningfully. We stress the importance of always involving context experts, to provide community ownership of solutions whenever possible, and connecting engagement practices with the outcomes we seek. We are leaders in applying community engagement to systems-thinking in order to work collaboratively for community-wide change.
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This planning canvas will help you work through the main considerations when planning to engage any segment of your community. Use this as a space to reflect, generate ideas, and refine your thinking. It can also serve as a holding place or reference file to summarize the key information for each of your engagement initiatives.
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In this paper, Sylvia discusses what community engagement actually is and how it is the core idea for change. She also explores why the nurturing of community ownership and leadership in any change effort is essential for its long-term sustainability and success. This paper will give you different perspectives to consider and questions that will spark ideas.
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The process of creating principles for engagement allows you to thoughtfully consider the unique needs of and relationship you want to have with your community. Once created, use these principles as a guide and checkpoint during the planning and implementation of your community engagement activities.
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This resource is a comprehensive list of community engagement techniques that can be selected based on the level of engagement you are conducting. Techniques include a description, helpful resources as well as factors to consider and are organized by level of engagement - inform, consult, involve, collaborate and empower
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By Lisa Attygalle
Fear is one of the biggest barriers that prevents changemakers from applying authentic community engagement practices. In this paper, Lisa Attygalle explores the role of fear in the engagement process, and provides practical strategies for transforming and applying fear in community engagement.
By Lisa Attygalle
A paper that discusses how to increase the authenticity of community engagement and eradicate tokenistic community engagement through the meaningful involvement of context experts.
By Lisa Attygalle
There has been a marked increase in demand for ‘Community-Led’ approaches to change across the country. We need to be intentional though about what ‘Community-Led’ means so that communities are not inadvertently acted-upon, and instead are empowered through leadership.
Lisa is a Consulting Director of the Tamarack Institute’s Community Engagement practice area. She believes in the power of people coming together to shape their future, and loves engaging in ways that shake things up and involve creativity.
Arts-Based Engagement
What are the benefits of arts-based engagement? What are the methodologies for arts-based engagement and how do you do it? How do you evaluate these more creative and participatory engagement methods?
Communicating Impact
Topics to be explored include:
