Three Community Planning Concepts for Greater Stakeholder Inclusion

Sometimes love is in the air (hey, Valentine's isn't that far away), sometimes we need to show we care about our stakeholders more. Three concepts I learned in my urban planning studies that might be relevant for community and stakeholder inclusion:

(The short version of this blog post: if you want to include the community more, do it in baby steps; you'll eventually realise you've shifted your relationship with the community the more you do it over time.) 1. A Ladder Of Citizen Participation by Sherry R. Arnstein: When I was in urban planning, one of the first concepts that I started to lean into, that actually made me more interested was the idea of the ladder of citizen participation. Created in 1969, the model shows eight levels of citizen involvement in decision-making from low-power "non-participation" (manipulation, therapy) through "tokenism" (informing, consultation, placation) to high-power "citizen power" (partnership, delegated power, and finally citizen control). As you go up the ladder, it shows how power shifts from officials to citizens with genuine control at the top, aiming to empower marginalised communities in planning.

Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation from The Citizen's Handbook

Below is an illustration from the American Planning Association which also shows the relationship between Arnstein's ladder and contemporary perspectives on social change (like labour and organising):

What to take from this: if you feel you need to give your beneficiaries more voice in your operations, think about where they currently sit on this ladder and how you can move them up that ladder. You can also think about how where you realistically can give them more power and where it has to be "tokenism" (where they can have some level of influence but can only provide limited input, as in consultation).

2. Community Based Research: I am using the term Community-Based Research (similar to what the Wellesley Institute does in this 2011 paper) to cover multiple forms of research that involve professional/ academic researchers and community members equally, as provided by this definition from the Kellogg Health Scholars program): CBPR is a collaborative approach to research that equitably involves all partners

in the research process and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings.

CBR begins with a research topic of importance to the community with the aim of

combining knowledge and action for social change to improve community health

and eliminate health disparities. Similar to the ladder of citizen participation above, approaches to community based research can be mapped along a spectrum going from collaborative (partnership-based) to empowering approaches (community-driven); as this illustration from Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute shows:

Illustration from Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute; retrieved from Research America's blog post "Community-Based Participatory Action Research"

What to take from this: if you have opportunities for research, this might be helpful to think about - even if it's just moving from informing to consulting (or starting to inform stakeholders if you don't already do this!). While it isn't realistic to have community members always leading research for your organisation, you can take steps to go from where you currently are towards sharing more or asking for more feedback. For example, when I worked in social housing, we had summer students who lived in our communities and they were able to be part of a resident survey across all our communities. With four high school students and one university student, they were able to participate (see above) in the survey after I trained them on survey collection methods. If this is something of interest, contact us! (I'd be happy to share more privately because you know, political acuity.) 3. Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD): This approach to community development rejects the needs-based idea of looking at what's missing in a community and looking for the strengths, assets and positives first in a community; since it was developed as an alternative to deficit-based approaches. This one really resonated with me since I struggled during urban planning classes where some professors talked about the urban planner as the expert and made no mention of the community; despite the richness of us studying urban and regional planning in a multicultural city like Toronto. In their Module on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) writes that the fundamental question here is:

Instead of asking “what’s wrong, and how to fix it,” the question we should be asking is “what’s worked and how do we get more of it?”

To further illustrate their point, they break down the differences in a needs based approach compared to an asset based approach:

	Needs (what is not there)	Assets (what is there)
What is going to help	Services to meet needs	Connections and contributions
View of community	Consumers / clients	Co-owners / co-producers / citizens
What end result should be	Programmes are the answer	Local people are the answer
Modified from Council on Social Work Education, Module on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD)

What to take from this: again, it's unrealistic to assume that the organisation can change its view from one approach to the other overnight. But if you're starting to worry about feeling too authoritarian or if you're feeling out of touch with community members, it's time to consider where you can start to delegate control. If you don't know how, perhaps you start by identifying and mapping assets or you start with a community consultation (whether that's getting a few people in a room or asking in emails / interviews / surveys). Whatever that looks like for you, you make a start. We can help with that too. If all this sounds exciting but you're still not sure what to do with it, reach out to us at hello@stridesinsights.com or at our contact page. We'll come up with a plan to do this together that's a little less scary.