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. 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 approaching engagement with an outcomes-based lens, of always involving context experts, and to provide community ownership of solutions whenever possible. We are leaders in applying community engagement to systems-thinking in order to work collaboratively for community-wide change.
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 Tamarack Institute
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
By Tamarack Institute
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.
By Sylvia Cheuy
In 'Community Engagement: A Foundational Practice of Community Change', 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.
By Tamarack Institute
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.
By Lisa Attygalle & Liz Weaver
This webinar explores how most of us recognize the need for and importance of engaging the communities we serve. Working to uphold the slogan, “nothing about us without us”, we might try to engage communities as much as possible. But engagement is a two-way street, and people who work in institutions and organizations sometimes find that the communities they hope to engage are hesitant or even resistant to engage. This can often be true when the relationship between institutions and communities is damaged, or where there is a lack of trust in the organization’s ability to engage in an open and honest way.
By Max Hardy and Sylvia Cheuy
This webinar features Max Hardy, a Citizen Engagement expert from Australia, and profiles some new thinking that reimagines our understanding of democracy in action and offers approaches that honour the wisdom and practicality of ordinary people. Listen as Max and Sylvia reimagine how ordinary citizens are invited and engaged as co-creators of the community’s shared vision of its future.
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