Benefits of community listening sessions

Community listening sessions are opportunities to get constructive feedback from your community in a process that provides solid data to inform your planning process, builds community relationships, and generates momentum for your work.  Community is defined as people or groups who are affected by your plans.  Listening sessions are conducted in a variety of ways like world cafes, consensus workshops, carousel walks, and empathy interviews.

Data:  Your planning process has questions.  Your community members have the answers.  You may have assumptions about what your community needs. Instead of assuming, ask. Focusing your planning on the issues that your community is actually experiencing saves time and valuable resources, and builds a foundation for community involvement.

Relationship:  Bringing community member together to talk about shared experiences is a community builder.  Think of any relationship you have ever grown.  That relationship started with a conversation.  

An article from Forbes tells us, Strong communities have a significant sense of purpose. People’s roles have meaning in the bigger picture of the community and each member of the group understands how their work connects to others’ and adds value to the whole. As members of community, people don’t just want to lay bricks, they want to build a cathedral.  

Momentum:  We may not want to make plans for cathedrals, but we may want to improve our community members’ lives or the areas they live in.  The size of the product isn’t as important as the momentum you build when you start conversations that build relationships.  Get people talking, and you are building influence, resources, and an extended group of people to call on to carry out your plans.

Who should be at the listening sessions

Ask yourself these questions to start building your target audience and invitation list?

• Who might be directly affected by the plan outcomes?
• Who might be doing the day to day work?
• Who might be called on to do specific parts of the plan?
• Who are leaders who need to be committed to plan outcomes?
• Who might be aware of the plan and its outcomes that could help pave the way for action?
• Who are people you might not think of initially but what if they new about this work?  What might they do for the plan?

Marketing and Communication

Marketing the sessions adds another layer of momentum when the plan moves to action.  Listening sessions can be marketed with:

• Poster
• Facebook Events and invites
• Social Media posts
• Church bulletins
• Community newsletters
• Community websites
• Email lists
• Radio talk shows
• Newspaper features

Marketing community listening sessions are an avenue to add a level of awareness to your planning process. Be sure to follow up with a communications plan.  People who participate in community listening sessions want to know where their input went.  Where are they showing up in the plan?  What happened after the session?  Be prepared to host a launch event after your plan is built and a solid communication plan to keep the momentum going.

Preparing for the event.

Most community listening sessions should be in a comfortable and accessible location.  You are looking for a location where anyone would feel welcome.  You also need space for people to move around.  Listening sessions are interactive workshops that require movement.  Typically you will need a space with lots of wall space and maybe even some audio visual equipment.  

Facilitator

You want a facilitator that can manage the space and the meeting itself.  You want to prepare your facilitator by giving them the logistics of the event and the number attending.  It’s important that listening sessions are conducted in a manner that allows for everyone to bring their voice into the room, is organized to gather data, and is a space that invites great conversations.

In Closing

Build listening sessions into your planning process.  You will have data to inform your plans.  You will build community.  You will build a network of people who can talk about your plan.  You will build momentum for your work.