Community Engagement:

A Mindset for Reaching Your Goals

About NCME:

We help stations engage their communities. 

We are funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to design, develop, and deploy print, digital, online, and other resources that:

• You and your colleagues can use to initiate or enhance a two-way conversation with community members.

• Help tell your community and potential funders about your value as an essential local institution.

• Identify opportunities that can help you find partners and funding for your work.

For more information:Visit our website at mediaengage.org

Call us at 866-234-2016Email us at info@mediaengage.org

Establish common understanding:

What do we mean by…• Engagement• Outreach• Promotion

Outreach

or

Engagement

Community engagement means

working collaborativelyto discover, understand

and addresscommunity needs and

aspirations.

Outreach Engagement

• Extension of an organization’s core service (value-added)

• One to many

• Talking to people

• Approaches audience with answers

• Integrated with an organization’s culture, strategy and practices

• Builds a pathway for dialogue

• Listening to people

• Works with the community to identify solutions.

If the focus is on you, your station or what you do, it’s

probably promotion.

(and that’s important, too)

Engaging requires a completely different orientation from broadcasting or outreach or promotion.

ANDEngaging informs all of those activities.

“Part of the work is making changes, listening and adjusting.

–Ariana Hall, WWOZ, New Orleans

Cultivate an Engagement Ethos

Deeply engaged organizations have community interactions

that are authentic, meaningful and responsive to community needs

Turn outward toward your community

Focus on possibilities not problems

Listen actively to seek insight from the diverse voices in your community

Understand your strengths and apply them strategically to address what you learn through listening

Constantly cultivate and sustain relationships in every level of the community

Work closely with others

to develop shared goals

Create shared value for the community

Connected.MediaEngage.org