It’s common knowledge that teamwork makes the dream work, but when it comes to actual application and intervention of team plans, a lot of the build-up often breaks down and falls short of the goals it set out to accomplish. And while we’d like to assume most communities worldwide are holding up quite well together in our fight against the Covid-19 global pandemic, numerous community projects, activities, and programs are meeting struggle after struggle because of the lack of engagement.
Sure, there’s no denying that the world is in a much better place now than what the circumstances were like over a year ago, but that doesn’t necessarily mean every community’s been able to recover. And if we continue to trod down this dangerous path, we might have no community left to return to nor neighbors to rely on because the negative factors holding us down will only get worse over time when no immediate action is taken.
Even The Most Well-funded Projects Fall Apart Without Engagement
To put things into context, no matter how well-funded the community feeding program, clean-up drive, or healthcare assistance project appears on paper, these plans will still succumb to failure when it’s unsuccessful in engaging the community itself. As its name suggests, community projects and activities are for the community. If your community members are disinterested or fail to see the upside, then there’s zero chance of it producing any benefits at all.
- Results Are Meant To Be Sustainable: Firstly, results gained from a community project should always be a net positive for the locals, but, most important of all, these results must be reproducible and sustainable. As a result, the involvement of community members becomes all the more essential to said project because they are both the users and beneficiaries working on and receiving benefits from the community project. So, communities must learn to follow in the footsteps of model companies like Banner Solutions, who pride themselves on superior customer experience and service.
- For The Benefit Of Everyone In The Community: Secondly, if a community project only benefits a select few people, then that itself is a problem because it undermines the purpose of a “community” itself. Remember, these activities and programs are for the benefit of everyone around you, meaning that all your neighbors, loved ones, and local businesses should stand to benefit from the community-building. Otherwise, people will ignore it and not care as to what happens with the project.
- Lack Of Resilience Against Instability: Lastly, overall community engagement becomes all the more necessary during times of dangerous circumstances and not-so-pleasant news jumping the gun left and right because they reinforce resilience. In contrast, when a community project has zero people backing it up and supporting the movement, it will quickly fall and crumble to the slightest of taps. Therefore, without the people from the community at your side, you’ll only struggle even more with management and implementation.
Connecting With People And Increasing Overall Involvement
Given those reasons mentioned above and the apparent adverse effects of just letting community engagement slip past your mind, communities must shift their focus to connecting with people and increasing overall community involvement. Projects and community-building activities must be geared towards plans that promote active participation from the people and offer variable results that improve with more hands at work.
- Projects Founded On Common Needs: Number one on your checklist is founding community projects on common needs. People will be intrinsically motivated and influenced to participate because it’s a solution everyone would appreciate. For example, the lack of personal protective equipment for every household can be met with donation drives and fundraising activities for the procurement of face masks and the like.
- Offer Feedback Channels To Communicate New Ideas: Number two, since we grappled with the principle of sustainability, an excellent way to keep results coming and improving is by offering feedback channels for new ideas. The plan is to provide everyone in the community with a voice, and having a safe space to share their ideas will most definitely encourage more involvement. As a result, you’ll be able to highlight direct concerns from the community and works just like Apple’s way of offering more ways to shop for their products.
- Motivate Actions With Positive Recognition: Last but not least, to really hit the nail on the coffin and guarantee community engagement is maintained, never forget to motivate the actions of community members with positive recognition. Sure, it might seem like a not-so-effective measure at face value, but it does help in keeping everyone entertained and introduce a bit of competition. Plus, it doesn’t even have to be monetary and can be done in-kind or just general recognition!
Spark The Urgency To Help In Your Community
There’s no way of sugarcoating how the world looks like today, and we’re still in the middle of the Covid-19 global pandemic that’s overwhelming ICUs and threatening the safety of our friends, family, and loved ones. So, now’s the best time for us to stand in unity, work together, and let this urgency for teamwork be our call to action for stronger and more effective community-building.
