You're leading a community outreach initiative. What pitfalls should you steer clear of?

Ensure that your outreach goals are clear, specific, and measurable. Avoid assuming you know what the community needs. Keep all stakeholders informed and involved. Ensure the initiative is inclusive and accessible to all community members, set realistic expectations, and deliver on promises. Have adequate resources (time, money, personnel) to carry out the initiative effectively to avoid incomplete or ineffective efforts. Regularly assess the progress and impact of your initiative. Stay open to feedback, avoid imposing solutions without community input, plan for the long term, and build strong partnerships for collaborative efforts.

If you’re leading a community outreach initiative, steer clear of the temptation to take shortcuts or to rush the trust building process. Taking short cuts by avoiding collaborating, listening and transparent feedback sessions, can create short and long term problems that will interfere with meaningful connections and prevent positive outcomes.

Traditional dominant community outreach & engagement approaches are often well meaning but continue to perpetuate (intended or not) models of extraction, exploitation and paternalistic or command & control power dynamics. These approaches typically overlook the importance of nurturing strong, equitable, trust-based relationships within the community grounded in shared purpose & understanding. They also prioritize the desired goals & outcomes of the leading company, organization, institution, etc. over what the community truly wants, needs or has to offer. Instead of presuming you know what is best, start with humility and commit to fostering meaningful engagement that supports collective capacity building through co-learning & co-creation.

One thing I have found helpful, setting realistic and attainable goals and expectations with the community members. Avoid imposing your personal views without considering the stakeholder's views of what they need.

To support more just, equitable, diverse and inclusive models of community outreach & engagement, remember to honor the unique expertise gained from the lived experiences, knowledges, identities, and capabilities of all community partners. Expertise comes in all shapes and forms. Everyone has something to contribute if people would only take the time to listen and uncover what strengths they have to offer. But identifying those special strengths is not enough. It is important to cultivate a welcoming environment that celebrates diverse contributions and offers multiple clear and accessible pathways for interested community partners to get involved while accounting for the many different barriers that could stand in their way.

In my experience the quality of the partnership is more important than the quantity of partners. You should strive for partnerships similar to your mission, goals, and strategic outlook. If you neglect to engage your partners, you miss the opportunity to build a robust network. When looking for funding, funders look for quality partnerships that can be confirmed by past projects, length of relationship, how the partnership works, etc.

Reach out to ask and give back more for them. Get regular feedbacks. Maintain regular communication to update the community of the process, progress, plan of action and anything relevant for them would help a long way in making the community feel seen and heard which in turn helps them stay footed with us with an added sense of ownership. The sense of 'ours' is the most important part of community outreach.