ARTICLE | Making the Case for Arts-Based Engagement

Strategy, Homepage Resources

This resource is also available in French. Click here to access the French version.

The arts bring life to our communities. It sparks joy. It teaches. It connects. It asks us to see things differently. But so often when the arts are used in community engagement activities it feels like an add-on, a sidebar. As we continue the migration from more traditional community engagement—that tends to rely on surveys and is more transactional in nature—to transformational engagement that seeks to authentically connect, listen, understand, and empower, arts practices have so much to offer

This article is for the community engagement practitioner who wants to breathe more life into the engagements they are designing. For the municipality who desperately wants to connect with community members in more creative ways. For the planner who feels more comfortable with quantitative processes but wants to stretch themselves. For the strategy facilitator who wants to create spaces for stakeholders to imagine. We invite you on a learning journey to try something new.

By Lisa Attygalle

In her role at Tamarack, Lisa works with cities and organizations to improve the way they engage with their communities. Over the last seven years her work has focused on creating engagement strategies for municipalities and organizations, integrated communications planning, and the use of technology and creativity for engagement. Lisa constantly advocates for simplicity in infrastructure, frameworks and design and loves applying the principles of marketing, advertising, loyalty, and user experience to community initiatives. -- Au Tamarack Institute, Lisa travaille avec les villes et les organisations afin qu’elles améliorent leur façon de mobiliser leur communauté. Au cours des sept dernières années, son travail s’est concentré sur l’élaboration de stratégies de mobilisation pour les municipalités et les organisations, la planification intégrée des communications, et l’utilisation de la technologie et de la créativité pour mobiliser les gens. Lisa est partisane de la simplicité en ce qui concerne les infrastructures, les cadres de travail et la conception. De plus, elle adore appliquer les principes de la mercatique, de la publicité, de la fidélisation et de l’expérience utilisateur aux initiatives communautaires.

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