Guide to Engaging Communities of Color

For decades, communities of color have been overlooked and ignored when major decisions have been made. This guide will explain different things to keep in mind when working with communities of color to build trust, access, and equity among residents.

Meaningful Participation

When engaging with communities of color, it is important to become familiar with the area and its residents in order to build lasting relationships with people. The most important thing when working with these communities is to engage them in the process, as this gives them a voice to identify what strengths and problems they see in their own community. This also gives them an opportunity to be a part of change in their neighborhood, which will inspire pride.

Different ways to involve residents in meaningful participation include discussions, campaigns, and community building activities. In order to have maximal efforts in these activities, they need to be scheduled around the daily activities of the community. For example, if the community is mostly families with kids, scheduling meetings after school and work would allow for the most attendance. Additionally, locating these meetings in convenient places is important to get participation, as residents are less likely to go outside of their community to attend meetings. Neutral locations such as parks, churches, or schools would allow the meetings to be more integrated in the community.

At these activities, there should be social time at the beginning to allow people to socialize and get to know each other and the city leaders before discussing the topic at hand.

City leaders should act as facilitators of discussion and use their knowledge and expertise to guide conversation. Residents should be the most participatory, by sharing their experiences, concerns, thoughts, and questions. This allows residents to feel more involved in the process and able to share their thoughts, while city leaders can learn from what the residents discuss about their community in order to help bring about change.

Participation Barriers

There are often issues when working with communities that have previously been ignored and overlooked. There are often barriers to overcome in order to build the trust of the community. A few of these barriers include distrust, accessibility, language, and information.

Distrust

So often in history, communities of color have been overlooked and torn apart due to decisions made by local governments. Over time, this has created a distrust of governments in these communities because promises have been broken and lives have been changed.

One way to help residents overcome their distrust in local leaders is to involve the residents in decision making processes. This will allow them to trust the process more once they understand how it works and how they can get involved in the future.

Another way to get residents to trust local leadership is to involve more people of color in leadership positions. People of different cultures have different experiences and are often able to relate to people of the same ethnicity. These experiences provide additional aspects of how a project can affect a community.

Accessibility

There are many different accessibility issues in communities, including the ability to attend meetings and understand the information.

When facilitating meetings and giving out information, it is important to keep the language in simple terms, and use graphics when applicable, as this will help the public more easily understand what is going on.

Additionally, hosting meetings in central community locations at convenient times is important to encourage attendance from all. Offering a babysitter at the activities or rides to the meetings will increase attendance.

Language

In addition to a barrier of understanding technical language, there is often a cultural language barrier.

Offering information in the language of the community is important in building trust and knowledge among residents. This can include verbal and written information.

Facilitators of community meetings should also be multilingual to be able to answer questions and engage with residents more easily. Having a translator at meetings is another option in providing this amenity.

Information

There is often miscommunication between local leadership and communities.

In order to overcome this barrier, the exchange of information from local leadership needs to be clear and concise. Written information pamphlets should be given out to each resident. Social media should be used for outreach as well. Vigilance in communication is important to allowing the community to be aware of what is happening in their community.

To get the community to speak up about issues, facilitation by local leadership is important. Questions leading the discussion should be asked and definitions should be defined. Allow residents to ask any questions they have in order to clarify what is being asked of them.

Follow-Up

Without follow up on engagement, trust will not be built in any community. Follow up can include continuing to be present in communities and engaging with residents, continuing to host community meetings, and reaching goals agreed upon by leadership and residents.

Effective Engagement

The following are different ways to assess effective engagement

Involving local organizations

This will allow for more efficient distribution of information and more trust in projects being done, as the community organizations are also participating

Make it fun

People are more likely to stay involved if it is not boring. Allow for social interaction and visual aids when hosting meetings and activities.

Make and keep realistic goals

Once the community knows that the local leadership is serious about what was discussed, more residents will participate and share their thoughts and concerns.

Efficient distribution of information

Sharing written, visual, and verbal information will allow for more residents to hear about meetings and plan to attend. Allowing the community and community leaders to share this information will also encourage attendance with a herd effect.

Convenient meeting times and locations

This will make it easier for residents to make it to meetings. Offering food, especially at meal times, will also attract people to these activities.