Community Convening Facilitation
The immense value of truly understanding the communities organizations serve cannot be overstated. Meaningful understanding of these communities heavily inform the services organizations provide, the methods for delivering those services, communication style and frequency and the many ways in which those services are engaged by clients.
Community town halls, stakeholder convenings and other neighborhood or regional engagement activities are a critical step in understanding the collective ideas, needs, thoughts and opinions found in those communities. These strategies allow us to gather collective feedback from that community’s stakeholders and creates a more robust discussion about the many ways that community is impacted by delivered or needed services.
16 Point Compass Consulting specializes in both the engaging facilitation and thorough documentation of any community convening. We know that getting the community involved and primed to share is no simple task and requires more than just finding a space and passing out flyers. Our facilitation methodology involves strategic recruitment, a facilitation and documentation framework with deliverables and outcomes and a set of community engagement techniques that help draw out the essential themes necessary for an organization to build from.
Community Engagement
Community Engagement is hard. Real, meaningful community engagement that honors communities where they are and engages in ways that recognize their lived experiences is much harder. Organizations deliver services that reflect a commonly understood need of a particular community as identified through studies and reports, news stories, external observations, requests from community members, government or political structures, grassroots organizations, and a host of other inputs.
Organizations could (and should) pull all the research they can about the varying needs of a given community as it lays the foundation for creating a delivery of services that is rooted in data. However, reaching out and engaging community members in culturally appropriate and relevant ways that allow for an open dialogue about specific experiences is where the proverbial “rubber meets the road”.
16 Point Compass Consulting provides community engagement solutions that enhances an organizations’ provided services through individual community member interactions and captured experiences, ultimately humanizing the data and creating a deeper, more robust service-delivery methodology.
Community Research & Reporting
Although there are many ways to really understand a community, two of the most significant, are (1) Engage the community directly through individual stakeholder interactions and community convenings (as noted above) and (2) Conduct vast amounts of community research and data gathering. For any program, initiative or organization to succeed in meaningfully serving their clients or constituents in ways that respond to their specific needs that are both relevant and appropriate, conducting thorough research is critical.
16 Point Compass Consulting specializes in conducting both types of essential community research and generating a comprehensive report to create an accessible complete picture of a community. This can help to inform an organization’s programming and strategy decisions, funding requests, mission shifts, service delivery methodology or any number of augmentations to an organizations current or future work.
Our reports may utilize and/or include many of the following elements. Geographic or regional trends; demographic & population data; assets & needs mapping; community-based organization offerings; government investments; impact of community initiatives & coalitions; historical timelines; crime statistics; funder commitments & expenditures; community survey data; comparative analysis; community equity research & assessments; news reports & media stories; stakeholder data; town hall captures; interview summaries along with photos, graphics & other multi-media documentation.