Entries by Jessica Delaney

Leveraging Surveys to Engage with Communities: The Power of Being Heard

The importance of community engagement cannot be overstated. When individuals feel connected, heard, and understood within their communities, it fosters a strong sense of belonging and promotes collective growth. An effective tool to foster this connection? Surveys. Why Surveys? Surveys offer a unique avenue to reach out, hear, and understand community members more deeply. They […]

Engaging on Climate Action

Whether it’s a starving polar bear, dramatic weather events, or rising sea levels, climate change is here, and the impacts are real and ever-present. On Earth Day, we want to share three resources for thinking about engagement and climate action. The narrative on climate change has dramatically changed over the last 30 years. No longer […]

Engagement Learnings on the Slopes

We can’t complain. We got another two weeks out of our ski season at Silver Star. It’s our family’s happy place and this year, just like that, our two boys became skiers. From tears over sore feet to big smiles, rosy cheeks, and little speed demons, we have embraced all the mountain has to offer. […]

Applying Methods: More Than a Hundred Ways to Engage

There are a few spots left in our June Methods course. If you have your pre-requisite of Fundamentals of P2 and Engagement, then you may want to check out this updated course that replaces the IAP2 Techniques course. This level 2 course dives into method selection, method sequencing, evaluating methods and, importantly, delivery. This course […]

Designing Engagement Surveys : There’s still time to sign-up!

There’s still time to sign up for our Designing Engagement Surveys. This jam-packed course provides participants with 16-hours of live instruction on how to plan, design, and report on meaningful engagement surveys. Different from public opinion research and loaded with opportunity to solicit qualitative and quantitative data, engagement surveys are a powerful engagement technique with […]

Communicating for Engagement

We always say that communication is a key dance partner for meaningful engagement. We are often asked: What’s the difference between public relations, corporate communications, and communications to support engagement? We were asked so frequently we developed a course called Communicating for Engagement! In this nine-hour course (delivered virtually over three 3-hour sessions of trainer-led […]

The Luck of the Engaging Irish

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Always a day of celebration in our family. How could we not celebrate with a name like Delaney, a family March 17 birthday, and a history that, at least on one side of the family, dates back almost 200 years to County Cork?

On a day of green beer and dancing to Great Big Sea and other great bands, it’s important to recognize that great engagement has little to do with luck. Our team of leprechauns has come up with our top seven ways to find “luck” in engagement:

“Luck”
Reality
1
The right people showed up.
You did pre-engagement and understood where and how to promote your engagement opportunity.
2
There was no conflict.
You had a plan to create and hold a safe space. You ensured that attendees were not strangers and that all felt welcome.
3
People totally get what you were talking about.
You had a communications plan and implemented your communications objectives thoughtfully.
4
People connected and felt safe.
You had a physical and psychological safety plan and implemented it with the help of Elders, knowledge keepers, peers, and mental health professionals.

You had a strong facilitation practice and created some shared operating values about how the group was going to “be” together.

5
Staff are more confident in facilitating engagement.
You did a staff orientation, so people knew what to expect. You had clear roles and responsibilities. As a group, you debriefed and celebrated your wins and identified opportunities to further develop.
6
The decision maker wants to fully consider what was learned in the engagement.
You did internal engagement that included the decision maker.
Your engagement work was not a secret. The decision maker was onboard from the get-go and felt they were truly part of the process.
7
You received valuable feedback that relates to your project.
You had engagement objectives and ensured the questions you asked and topics you explored related to your objectives.

There’s nothing wrong with luck, but you can’t always be lucky. You can always have a plan, so let’s plan on being “lucky”.