Community Engagement

Listen, Learn, Mobilize

Community engagement is about creating easy ways for stakeholders to provide input to organizations. At the heart of this activity is the recognition that people have ideas, knowledge and opinions that are important to their community. An organization may use engagement to increase awareness or mobilize behaviour, but a primary goal must be for an organization to listen and learn what people want. This means committing to considering and responding to the community input. 

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With years of experience in methods honed by the International Association of Public Partnership (IAP2), we develop clear strategies that help an organization understand public opinions, and move ahead with policies and practices that align with the overall goals and values of the community.

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Public Shift helps leaders connect with the interests of their community in the most cost-effective and valid methods of gathering input. We use tactics that respect the busy lives of people in our community to gain high participation through the most convenient methods.

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We also help organizations with effective and rewarding staff engagement.

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Our clients also include community groups who seek to have their voice heard by public-sector decision makers.

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Our services include:

• Online community recruitment

• Survey development and deployment

• Community consultation

• Community advocacy

• Public input planning and management

• Meeting facilitation

• Public forums

• Participatory democracy (especially in budget input)

• Stakeholder relations

• Community leadership development

• Community dialogue 

• Community-led project or issue mobilization

• Civil society engagement

• Open government development

• Inter-governmental or inter-organizational dialogue and advocacy