Civic Engagement December 2021
Civic Engagement reflecting the community: A tale of two localities
By Sheila Minor, Director of Finance, City of Colonial Heights
Colleagues-
With the coincidental timing of this month’s article, I’m inviting you along on my professional journey. Three months ago when I agreed to write this, my focus was going to be on grassroots engagement-- specifically, the Colonial Heights’ Citizens Government Academy and its impact in this City of under 18,000 residents. Like many small localities, Colonial Heights has a handful of very active citizens, but struggles to reach their “silent majority”. One popular program that has helped to engage the community has been the annual Citizens Government Academy (CGA).
This eight-week program meets for two hours on Thursday evenings, each week highlighting the work of multiple city departments and offering participants a first-hand look at the work of the City. While many localities across the state offer similar programs, Colonial Heights offers day-in-the-life experiences and forthright discussions with City employees (department directors and front-line employees alike) to a limited (no more than 12) cohort of participants. Highlights of the program include using fire extraction equipment, non-lethal weapon demonstrations, touring the regional jail and neighborhood public works facilities, and virtual reality experiences at the library. In between these exciting events, City employees engage participants in discussion of opportunities and challenges that face the community on a daily basis. Word-of-mouth advertises this popular program that has more applicants than available slots. Graduates, such as City Councilman and Delegate-Elect Michael Cherry, take their knowledge back to their neighborhoods, churches, and civic organizations.
Maintaining that personal touch is just as important in larger communities but can be done in a very different way. In preparing for a new opportunity with Henrico County this month, I’ve discovered a completely different take on community engagement. The top of Henrico’s homepage asks visitors to “Take a minute to get connected!” and then invites citizens to select and rank their preferences among eight different ways to receive information and communicate with the County. After identifying preferences, site visitors are then asked to provide their contact information and sign up for e-newsletters, (if selected). Participants may then opt to share additional information about themselves including age range, race/ethnicity, gender, education, and marital status. Information from the site provides the County valuable feedback about the preferred communication formats of various demographic groups in an ongoing effort to understand and reach a broad, representative set of voices. As part of their community outreach, Henrico Public Relations has also focused on providing information in several of the nearly 100 different languages spoken by Henrico residents. Staffing a regular segment on a local Spanish-speaking radio station is just one example of Henrico’s many civic engagement efforts focused on reaching people where they are.
If your community outreach needs the proverbial shot-in the arm, then try something new. Previous community engagement articles for this newsletter have shared great ideas: barbeques, radio shows, community meetings, youth councils, educational programs, and numerous other approaches to outreach. They have also discussed a number of tools: websites, newsletters, cable TV, text messages, and of course, social media. Rather than starting from scratch, try tweaking one or more of these ideas to fit your needs. Community engagement is not one-size-fits-all; however, successful initiatives work best when they meet people where they are and match the unique culture of the community.
(Many thanks to the Henrico Public Relations Team for their contributions to this article.)