Choosing Engagement Methods

Now that you’ve created a plan for outreach and engagement, you can dive into the specific methods that you will use.

Helping you choose methods: the Engagement Database

Now you can go back to your outreach and engagement planning worksheet and dive deeper into the question “What methods will you use?” There is such a range of engagement methods and choosing the best option requires knowing both what’s available and what’s appropriate for your specific project. In order to address these needs, the Engagement Methods Database was created.

The following database shows a variety of possible engagement methods you might use. You can browse through the database for inspiration and even filter the methods to identify the best options for your specific project. Each method has a brief description, detailed instructions, and an overview of the benefits and considerations. Furthermore, each method is also tagged with a variety of codes to help you understand when, where, why, and with whom you should use the method.

Notes on the Engagement Methods Database

The methods listed in the database are just a starting point. There are so many possibilities for engagement activities and this database is just meant to be a starting point. Furthermore, the activities and instructions can be infinitely modified to fit the needs of your project.

Most of the activities were at least inspired by, if not directly pulled from, other engagement toolkits and designers. I have summarized all of these references in the “Reference Links” section of each method. I suggest you explore these references to get inspiration for how to modify and apply these methods.

Using Airtable filters to choose methods

You can create filters in Airtable to narrow down your search for suitable engagement methods. The different categories by which you could filter the Airtable are explained below

Audience

You can use the audience filter to narrow down the activities that best fit your audience type. This describes the general type of audience who is best suited to participate in this method. You can filter to show the following audience types:

• Internal to NDC

• Volunteers

• Partners

• Community Adults

• Community Youth

Purpose

You can use the purpose filter to hone in on methods that will help your goal for the engagement. This describes the part of the design/engagement process that the method is best suited for. You can filter to show the following parts of the process:

• Setting Values

• Mapping Resources

• Exploring Problems

• Developing Solutions

• Evaluating Designs

Virtual/In-Person

You can use the virtual/in-person filter to show methods that are best suited for virtual or in-person formats.

Location

You can use the location filter to identify methods that best fit the format of engagement which you plan to use. Some methods, like surveys or tabling, are themselves situations while others are activities that could be used while tabling or workshopping. You can filter to show the following locations:

• Survey

• Tabling

• Presentation

• Workshop

Planning for Analysis and Interpretation

As you’re choosing methods and planning activities, you should also be thinking about what kind of results the activity will produce and how you will interpret them. It can be helpful to run through your engagement activities with a colleague to test how someone else might respond to your prompts. This can help you identify any misunderstandings within the activities and preview the type of responses you might get. It’s crucial that you are able to analyze and synthesize the results of engagement so that you can share the results with the designers, partners, and back to the community.

Some activities, like voting or multiple choice surveys, may produce results that are easy to interpret. Other activities, like collages, skits, or drawings, may take more effort to interpret. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use these methods, but you should already have some idea of how you will analyze whatever form of data you collect.