Top Tips for Engaging with People in their own Communities

1. What is a community?

A full ranging discussion began around the question of: What is a community? Three main answers emerged, that is a community can be defined by:

• people living in the same place (often remote/rural);
• people with a common interest;
• an organised group.

Some noteworthy differences between these types of communities were identified, as well as the difference between local and rural communities.

• people living in the same place;
  
  • These are usually found in remote/rural locations.
  • These groups are situational based and often contain members with wide ranging interests and experiences.
  • these groups don’t tend to publicise themselves.

• people with a common interest;
  
  • These are the most common type of groups found in urban areas. They can appear to be closed.
  • This can describe every group you work with as people are brought together for a short time with an interest in your material.
  • Sometimes these people do not know one another personally, but will attend the same events as others, creating an unofficial community.
• an organised group;

Larger groups are more organised - programmes tend to be booked well ahead. Small groups are good for local access, but not an efficient means of reaching a wide audience.

Examples of organised groups include:

• http://www.ribi.org/)
• (http://www.themothersunion.org/, http://www.thewi.org.uk/)
• Community Woodland Groups (http://www.communitywoods.org/)
• Retired groups (meet during the daytime)
• Youth groups – Scouts (http://www.southeastscotlandscouts.org.uk/) /Guides (http://www.girlguidingscotland.org.uk/) /Woodcraft Folk (http://www.woodcraft.org.uk/) /Church groups
• Festival organisations – music, The Outsider Festival (http://www.outsiderfestival.co.uk/) , the Snowdrop Festival
• Patient groups
• Schools
• Companies
• Clockmakers
• Sports clubs
• The Museums sector
• Council run community organisations (eg local libraries).

• Rural versus Urban communities
  
  • Community groups in rural areas are more open and will link with other groups. Everyone will come from the same area.
  • Urban community groups are more insular and often only link with other similar groups.
  • Small rural community groups don’t tend to publicise themselves.
  • Remote communities need to organise their own entertainment and so often have more ownership of events they invite, hence they can be more engaged then in urban areas.
  • There tend to be less competition for peoples interest and time in rural areas, so this can lead to success too.

Some of the advantages of working with a Community are:

• Communities can be more effective/richer as people are already connected.
  
  • Closer ages
  • Similar experiences
• With communities there can be the feeling that if other people are doing it, then so will I. There needs to be the social aspect of engagement and entertainment, to bring people along.

1. How do you contact a community group?

• In all types of communities personal contacts tend to be the most powerful.
• Cross fertilisation/ word of mouth can be an effective means of contacting interested communities. 
• Large, well organised umbrella organisations like the National Forestry Commission can prove very effective at reaching groups.

2. Consider what communities do you want to reach?

• Children, this is seen as having the largest long term impact on society.
• Young adults (a difficult one to reach)
• Important to realise the ability of one group to influence another (eg targeting parents can reach children and vice versa)
• Note that funders need to be educated on the impact of diverse and indirect audiences.
• It can be a mistake to go through primary schools to target a community. You do catch the parents, but you miss, older children/young adults and people who don’t have children.
  
  • Solution could be to have the children put on a play and feedback into the community

3. How to get funded.

Working with communities can open up access to a wide range of funding sources. However to access these non-academic funding sources it is important that the projects are community led, ie you know what the community wants. Determining this can be a long process as there are a lot of stakeholders and can create a long lead time for writing a bid.

Potential funders for public engagement projects:

• Research Councils UK (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/)
  most funding councils have a public engagement stream, and all allow for public engagement costs in a research grant application).
• Heritage Funds are very community focused and have a sophisticated appreciation of communities.
  See: http://www.hlf.org.uk/english
• Environmental Funds

4. What didn’t work?
 

Lessons learnt in practical activities covered a considerable range and is best represented by the zooming prezi mind map:

Working with Communities - Lessons Learnt on Prezi