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Transform Your Practice: Case studies
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These case studies and the accompanying card deck demonstrate how cities are challenging the myths of community engagement and share new, impactful practices. Organized around common misconceptions that often get in the way of effective outreach, the case studies detail the changes cities have undergone to bring more people into their outreach activities – and how those changes are resulting in positive impacts on everything from park improvements to long-range planning processes.
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A special thanks to the Sustaining Robust Engagement & Stewardship Working Group of the Civic Commons Learning Network for their contributions to this project.
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Read the case studies at the links below.
Myth: There will be a golden moment of harmony

No community is homogeneous, so perfect consensus should never be the goal of engagement. But by building relationships,…
Myth: Traditional community engagement is effective

Typical community engagement strategies often lack thoughtful intentionality and are not designed to nurture the trust and relationship…
Myth: Everyone comes into the process in the same way

People’s personal life experiences, values and needs will produce a range of responses and involvement in the engagement…
Myth: The “community” turns up

Practitioners assume a representative group of people will participate in the engagement process, but research shows that public…
Myth: Getting “input” from residents should be the focus

When the goal is to collect input, the result is often a transactional engagement process and a missed…