I’ve seen many a consultation fail.

An organisation says, ‘what do you think of this thing we want to do’, then someone says what they think, and the organisation says thanks for the comments.

This is not ‘engagement’. At best, if the comment actually does influence your organisation’s work, it’s a transaction.

At middling it’s a big fat waste of time.

At worst, everyone who commented gets annoyed and will never trust that you actually care what they think.

Meaningful engagement is where you listen to what’s said and ask follow up questions. It’s when you regularly talk to your community, and sometimes it’s not about things that are a priority for the organisation.

Because you actually care, not because ‘caring’ is in your organisation’s values.

Community building is relationship building, not just asking questions and bunging the answers at whoever began the consultation in the first place.