What we do

Community Engagement Planning and Delivery

We can plan out your engagement from the strategic level to on-the-ground operational. Our planning includes elements like:

Stakeholder identification and analysis
Data mapping frameworks
Risk and issues management
Method and tools development
Deliberative engagement planning and facilitation
Engagement communications promotion and content
Survey development and testing including online (using various platforms)
Engagement and project evaluation

With our experienced team we can also deliver a wide range of engagement activities including place-based pop-ups, events and launches, online surveys, activities and forums, facilitation of groups and meetings and deliberative processes.

Community visioning and long-term planning

We have extensive experience in working with organisations to plan and deliver comprehensive engagement programs for community visioning projects and development of long-term strategies. Examples of some projects we have worked on include:

Whitehorse 2040 Community Vision
Glen Eira Community Vision – Glen Eira City Council
MV2040 – community vision for Moonee Valley City Council
Whittlesea 2040 Our Future Vision – community vision for Whittlesea Council
Municipal Early Years Plan and Positive Ageing Plan - Macedon Ranges Shire Council
Bass Coast Living Young Plan – Bass Coast Shire
Your Peninsula 2021 - Council Plan and Municipal Health and Wellbeing Plan Mornington Peninsula Shire Council
Wyndham Coastal Management Plan
Hobsons Bay Coastal Management Plan

Strategic engagement, communications and issues management

We can meet all your communications and issues management needs for any engagement project including:

Developing communication and social media plans
Developing key messages
Identifying and analysing key stakeholders
Analysing and mitigating potential issues
Mapping out and planning for the political environment
Developing promotional content including for social media

Facilitation

We are experienced facilitators and can lead a range of workshops including stakeholder workshops, school workshops, world café style workshops, deliberative sessions, town hall meetings, community forums and focus groups.

Our workshops are always:

Designed to achieve a full understanding of stakeholder issues
Planned to effectively manage competing or differing perspectives
Tailored to meet the needs of each stakeholder group
Interactive and creative to ensure high levels of participation
Planned to ensure information is gathered in line with data requirements and evaluation criteria

Data analysis and reporting

As part of our planning process we map out data needs and frameworks and ensure our engagement activities and questions line up with these requirements.

Our data analysis includes:

Descriptive analysis for participation profiles
Statistical analysis for likert-scale type responses to closed-ended questions
Content and thematic analysis for personalised, free text responses to open-ended questions

Our services also include development of engagement reports (high level or detailed), as well as engagement summaries and presentations.

Training and capacity building

We offer a range of training and mentoring services to build engagement capacity within organisations including:

Setting up and training a group of engagement champions
Training on the job at pop-ups activities and co-facilitated workshops
One-on-one mentoring opportunities
Programmed series of training sessions
Information/education sessions delivered with groups of staff, Councillors or Executive groups

Innovative and inclusive enaggement methods and tools

We love the challenge of making community engagement innovative, creative, inclusive and fun while still ensuring we achieve project and data objectives. Some of our innovative engagement tools include:

Giant chatboards
Dotmocracy voting boards using images (where people can vote using dots)
Big ideas drawing sheets
Voting pods
Big idea speech bubbles
Props, costumes and the use of artists (to help people/ children think outside the box and use their imagination)