How to engage with community

This is the first step of engagement.

Share what is negotiable, and what is non-negotiable in the work. This prevents misunderstandings and potential disputes. It also respects people’s time.

To plan your engagement, you can use our Engagement plan template.

Before you begin engagement, it is important to reflect with your team on:

• what you understand about the community
• your assumed knowledge
• unconscious bias
• what has been overlooked in past engagement.

Reflection will help you unpack your assumed knowledge about the community or project. It can then guide your research and help you reflect throughout.

The next step of community engagement is to research:

• the community or audience you want to engage
• other engagement being done with the community in the sector
• existing data and information from your organisation or others
• existing advisory groups or forums
• stakeholders and organisations who have a trusted relationship with community.

This is sometimes considered optional, but it can have a big impact on the success of your engagement. Dedicate the time at the start. Some resources that can help you learn more about your audience include:

• Community profiles
• Language data maps
• ABS Community profiles

Many communities are over consulted. This happens when they are asked the same questions by different organisations.

You can ‘stack’ your engagement with other organisations in the sector if they are:

• collecting similar information
• engaging the community on the same problem
• engaging the same community on different problems.

What this could mean in practice is regular, scheduled engagement. You might plan quarterly meetings with a specific community group instead of engaging as projects or issues arise.

If you ‘stack’ your engagement, it can build your relationship with that community without burning them out. It also helps you and your stakeholders achieve the same goal or identify an opportunity for co-design.

If you work in a large organisation, you could keep track of engagements with the community in a calendar. This can help you ‘stack’ engagement over time.

This should include:

• the background of your project
• the aim of your engagement – why are you engaging? What do you want to learn?
• which organisations work with this community with contact details
• existing data and research
• the level of influence community can have on the outcome
• how you will engage, for example surveys
• how it is inclusive and accessible, for example creating translations
• cross-community impact
• how you will measure progress
• how you will evaluate the project and report on the outcome
• how you will close the loop with community.

Keep your plan open to changes. This will allow you to assess the best information you have and adjust the plan accordingly. If you are involving community in every step, this is likely to happen.

For help creating your plan, consult the Public Engagement Framework 2021-2025.

Plain language is an internationally recognised way of writing that puts the reader first. It is a technique used across many sectors including health, legal and government.

It is not just about simplification, but about clarity. It considers:

• what readers want and need to know
• readers’ level of interest, expertise and literacy skills
• the context in which readers will use the document or service.

Source: International Plain Language Standard.

Regardless of your audiences’ literacy levels, plain language can help you engage the most people.

Plain language word tips

Plain language format tips

For more tips on accessible writing, visit the Australian Government Style Manual.

Audience checklist

How does your audience:

• relate to government or institutions?
• find your information?
• like receiving information?
• know what you want them to do?

This can give you time to:

• learn more about their needs and priorities
• identify key stakeholders
• understand the different types of community leaders (formal and informal)
• ensure under-represented groups are included as well as established leaders. For example, young people, people with disability or women
• manage risks
• determine accessibility requirements
• allocate funding and resources appropriately.

When you involve community early, you must be realistic about their scope of influence. This means communicating clearly about:

• what can be influenced in the approach
• how power can or can’t be shared in decision making
• how they can change the outcome.

If it is an option, you could give the community a ‘list’ and ask them to select the issues they want deeper engagement on. People want to be consulted when an issue is relevant and important to their world.

Often, we only engage on an issue when it is important to us. This can make people feel unheard.

Doing engagement poorly can often be worse than not doing it at all.

Standard approaches may not work for everyone. This includes surveys, focus groups, interviews and roundtables.

If community is not engaging, they might not care about the issue. This might be an opportunity to reflect on the problems you are addressing, and what matters to community.

To design your engagement, you can use our Checklist.

You can also create a Social story. This can be a useful tool for engaging people with disability, neurodivergence and young people.

When we pay (or reimburse) people, it shows we value their time, resources and expertise. Community and lived experience are recognised forms of expertise.

You can learn more in our Payment guidelines.

One of the most important parts of community engagement is the final step – closing the loop. This means that you get back to the community with:

• how you will use their insights
• the next steps
• how their engagement influenced the decision/outcome/approach.

Closing the loop with community strengthens relationships. It shows them that you care about their feedback and respect their input. It also shows community that you can follow up on what you have promised.

There are many ways you can close the loop. You could:

• ask participants to confirm if their feedback has been accurately recorded
• schedule regular emails
• keep the community updated through key stakeholders or leaders
• involve community in your evaluation
• publish and share the results of your project
• provide a report on how their insights have been used.

You can find an example of how to close the loop at Homes Victoria.

Co-design, or co-creation, is a collaborative process. It involves sharing power, knowledge and decision-making with community from the start.

Solutions are designed with the people who will use or be affected by them. This ensures solutions are relevant and meet real needs. Before you begin, you can check if co-design is the right tool for your engagement.

Co-design can help you:

• build trust
• build stronger relationships
• manage power imbalance
• hear underrepresented voices in community
• avoid consultation fatigue.

When people help shape your project, they are more likely to:

• feel ownership
• be satisfied with and engaged in the outcome
• understand your working environment
• benefit from future engagements with your organisation.

Being part of co-design also means that the community member can:

• use their knowledge, expertise and experiences to create solutions
• build their own capacity
• develop new skills
• add their engagement to their resume for future work opportunities.

• Understand co-design principles and practice.
• Set expectations for the scope of the project.
• Engage external partners to design and lead a culturally safe process.
• Define everyone’s roles.
• Build development opportunities into the co-design process. This could be teaching community members new skills or growing their professional networks.
• Have funding to pay people for their time
• Be clear about what community can expect from their involvement. If they identify a need that you didn’t know about, how will you respond?
• Set up clear channels of communication.
• Use existing connections to community and leaders.
• Schedule enough time. Co-design is usually a longer process but can be more efficient in the long term.

To recruit participants, you need to prepare a brief. The brief should include several key areas:

Community can be involved in:

• identifying the problem and what success would look like
• making decisions
• identifying, testing and scaling solutions
• ongoing monitoring of outcomes.

In this process, you might establish unique ways of monitoring success. For your organisation, it may look like a report or publishing data. For the community, it may be:

• attendance at a town hall
• use of a service
• education and employment opportunities
• independence
• safety
• community pride.

It can be more meaningful to co-define success with community members from the beginning. This will strengthen your investment of time, resources and funding.

To learn about co-design with multicultural young people, see the Centre for Multicultural Youth’s Good Practice Guide.

When you recruit for your advisory group, you should:

• be clear on the purpose of the advisory group
• clarify the scope of the role and representation – will they give advice or make decisions? What projects will they work on?
• explain the time commitment – including if work or reading is expected outside of meetings
• encourage applications from people with relevant or lived experience to the work they will do
• tell people what they will be paid
• share what support will be available
• write the position description in plain language aiming for a reading level of grade 8
• promote the recruitment through organisations that work directly with the community.

You should also explain that some projects may have distressing topics. This is important if those applicants have lived experience of the issue. It is important that they feel comfortable and ready to share their story.

As part of the application process, you could ask:

• what motivates you to join this group?
• what do you want to achieve in this role?
• do you feel ready and safe to participate?
• are you comfortable listening to the experiences and views of other members? They may be distressing to hear.
• what type of support do you need to participate?
• do you have any legal or privacy considerations that might impact your ability to join?

Other people in your organisation or in the sector may want to work with your advisory group. They may want advice for their own projects. In those cases, it is important that you set boundaries, so the group is not over-consulted. You also want to make sure the projects they work on have tangible results.

To manage engagement requests with an advisory group, see Engagement request.