The world is progressing rapidly from a traditional executive-led approach to a collaborative decision-making process. In community engagement, both the community and the decision-makers benefit by reaching a mutual decision.

Encouraging public participation not only brings forth new and innovative ideas but also leads to equitable, sustainable, and effective outcomes.

Following are some of the top-notch five reasons why public participation and community engagement are essential for the community’s well-being.

  • Leads to Better Understanding of Community’s Needs

By involving stakeholders and the community in the decision-making process, you better understand the concerns and problems being faced by the community. Philanthropists like Katrina Sriranpong understand the community’s concerns and make a decision that benefits the community in the long run.

Long gone is the traditional approach where the decision-makers engaged in a one-way communication by relaying information to the community.

Allowing community engagement makes the decision-makers learn about the likes and dislikes of the particular community. Nowadays, involving the public helps decision-makers create better, beneficial, and transformative projects.

  • Improves Decision Making due to Diversity

It is vital to understand the community’s perspective when making a decision. Listening to a particular group having a strong voice leads to marginalization and ineffective results. It is essential to understand the viewpoints of all groups within a community so that the final result is beneficial to all groups.

Leaders like Katrina Sriranpong believe in diversity inclusion and make a decision based on the entire community’s feedback.

  • Increases Transparency

Stakeholders such as organizations, businesses, local governments, and the public need to know how their inputs have been taken into account while making a decision.

Allowing transparency during the decision-making process enables the public to learn how different viewpoints were catered to while making a decision. It also makes them feel validated that their opinion was considered while making a decision.

  • Leads to Community Ownership

The community is better informed about their rights, concerns, cultural history, and background. Involving the community during the decision-making process leads to better implementation of the projects. People will also feel more responsible when their opinions are included in the project. This will lead to trust and positivity between your organization and the community.

Enabling long-term effective relationships between the community and the organization result in increased community ownership where people will actively be involved in taking care of the community and the project at hand.

  • Ensures Smooth Progress

Allowing public participation and community engagement ensures that your project runs smoothly, leading to cost minimization. Encouraging public participation helps identify roadblocks and hurdles that might affect project implementation. By continually scanning the community for issues and allowing public feedback, you can save a lot on budget, cost, and time.

Conclusion

Community engagement is a fun process where you have the opportunity to brainstorm new ideas, highlight key role players, fuel big dreams, and discuss community aspirations. Allowing public participation helps to create better, innovative, and sustainable projects.