If your organisation is investing in deliberative engagement, you want a high return on that investment. Real impact is the goal.
Yes - deliberation can build a more trusted, public decision that results in improved outcomes for people impacted. However, impacts can go beyond the immediate issue or decision at hand.
Organisations shouldn’t set their sights too low, because deliberation done right can yield long term benefits for the organisation, decision makers and communities.
Deliberative processes can also ‘link’ to or feed into future work, help you to build continuous connections with your community and be used as foundation from which to build future engagement processes.
Instead of pouring resources into one process and then forgetting about it after the decision is made, organisations can think more strategically about decision making.
Read on for six ways to achieve long-term benefits, and increase the ROI of your next deliberative engagement process.
Six WAYS TO ACHIEVE LONG-TERM IMPACT AND A HIGHER ROI
1 - Put relationships at the centre of your process
Think beyond the project you’re in the middle of and put more focus on long-term relationships. If you keep this in mind throughout planning and delivery, it shifts your thinking beyond immediate project needs and will transform your process in powerful ways.
2 - be accountable
Consider how the organisation and its decision makers will hold themselves accountable. Accountability goes hand in hand with transparency and trust and can change the way your organisation is perceived and the impression made on your community. Your level of accountability is something people will remember well beyond the current project.
Accountability requires that the organisation makes a strong promise to its public, communicates it clearly, is answerable to that promise and takes real action to follow through.
3 - consider internal culture, capacity and change
Don’t forget to consider internal culture change and capacity building.
How will you engage with broader internal audiences around the deliberative process?
What skills need to be built or internal change needs to happen?
Are there systems and processes that need to shift to support the deliberative process?
By investing organisational readiness and treating internal audiences as key stakeholders, you’ll see shifts that strengthen project outcomes and result in long-term, positive, internal change.
Deliberative processes can also build evidence that can help support advocacy for changes required to strengthen project outcomes and help build the case for future engagement.
4 - create small but powerful ‘ripples’
Invest in a deliberative process with integrity and you can start a ripple effect throughout your organisation, your stakeholders and the community.
Even if one little crack opens up that shows you are willing to be accountable and approachable, this can have a profound impact. In time, this can lead to a changed experience in the way the organisation operates, and the relationships it has.
To ensure your deliberative process has impact, it needs to be built around core deliberative principles.
Dive deeper: Explore these principles and how to assess whether a process is truly deliberative in our previous #MonthlyMyth: Call it deliberation and it will be.
5 - Build on your process and link to future work
We see plenty of examples of deliberative engagement that involve one randomly selected group working on one issue over a few days together. That approach can be effective and powerful when done right. There are also lots of other exciting possibilities and models to explore.
There are ways to link deliberative processes together and build on deliberative work to enhance outcomes. Perhaps an alternative approach might be a better fit for your organisation and community or a more effective way to tackle the problem you’re trying to solve.
Dive deeper: Explore three of these ideas in this previous #MonthlyMyth: Deliberation is one time, one group, one issue.
6 - communicate transparently with the broader community impacted
You can’t build broader public trust in your process or decision if the wider community doesn’t know a deliberative process is happening, how the decision is being made or how they are being represented. Effective communication with your community, stakeholders and internal audiences is key.
Communicating too late or too little is a missed opportunity for your organisation, because if you’re deliberating in a principled way, you have a great story to tell.
If the wider community understands and supports the process, this will help to build long-term trust in your decision-making processes.
Transparency is an important part of deliberative practice, and this relies, in part, on effective communication. Your approach to the provision of information and communication with the wider public needs to be open and genuine.
Explore how to balance risk and transparency, and why you need to be brave, in this #MonthlyMyth: Transparency and risk go hand in hand.
MEASURING THE IMPACT: PARTICIPANT TRANSFORMATION
participant change - 10 council deliberations
Deliberative engagement is inherently impactful when delivered well. We continually see the transformative effect of deliberative processes firsthand. Now, thanks to two years of research and the responses of 314 deliberative process participants, we can begin to quantify this impact.
MosaicLab’s Deliberation and Democratic Trust Report: Measuring participant change across 10 Victorian councils captures the responses to pre- and post-deliberation surveys completed by community panel participants in 2020 and 2021. The report highlights what’s possible when communities are given real influence over big decisions.
The surveys were collected to evaluate the impact of 10 deliberative engagement processes conducted by nine councils. MosaicLab supported each organisation to elevate their community engagement processes, incorporate key democratic principles and offer higher levels of influence in their communities.
Read the case study: 11 transformative council deliberations
Participants in these processes – everyday people, randomly selected and descriptively representative – were surveyed twice, at the start and end of each process. The results reveal remarkable changes in before-and-after perspectives.
Stay tuned - exciting new research report on the way
We're busy assembling an expanded report which will build significantly on this initial work. Our next report will compare results from 692 participant surveys drawn from across 22 projects collected over six years.
This report will pain a richer, bigger picture given its scope goes beyond local government and includes deliberation across other sectors.
FURTHER READING AND FREE RESOURCES
Interested in deliberative practice? We have resources for organisations and engagement professionals at every stage of the deliberation journey.
From a simple deliberation ready test through to a local government deliberation guide and our new book Facilitating Deliberating - A Practical Guide, we are here to support you to enhance your practice and do decision-making differently.
Plus we have a huge range of videos, downloads and publications - and they are all free. Click the links below to explore what’s on offer.
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