How can you get your community excited and bought into the launch of your network?
All along you have hopefully been engaging various members of your community to help you dive into details as you research and develop your plans. At some point in your process you need to plan on engaging your larger community. You need to get them to buy into the vision and success of this community network.
Key Points
- Stakeholder engagement may take many different forms based on the kind of network you are creating and the size of your community. The strategies you use will be different for a small town of 50 people versus a region with thousands of people.
- Local champions are critical as they can help navigate local politics and connect you with people.
- There are many models and organizing tools available for helping with community meetings.
Take Action
Schedule public meetings with your community to walk them through all that you’ve done so far and get them engaged.
Interact with local community groups and local service organizations to see how they can help with your project.
Provide recordings and a publicly-available history of stakeholder engagement so that there is transparency around what you are doing.
Learn More
- Community Network Readiness Handbook section on “Stage Two – Stakeholder Engagement”
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