What is Public Engagement and Why Do It?

Public engagement can refer to any process that allows the public to participate in agency decision-making.

What is Public Engagement?

Public engagement enables the government to incorporate public concerns, needs, and values into projects and decisions. It is sometimes used interchangeably with other terms like public participation, stakeholder engagement, and community engagement. Central to all of these terms is the idea that public involvement can produce better decisions with greater public support.

Engagement is an organized process. It is not a single event, but a series of activities and actions over the course of a decision process or project. It is intentional and involves seeking out public input and allowing it to have some level of influence over the decisions being made.

For more information see: EPA Public Participation Guide

Why Engage the Public?

First and foremost, stakeholder and public engagement recognizes that people should have a say in decisions about agency actions that affect their lives. Furthermore, when done effectively, engagement can strengthen agency decisions and improve conservation outcomes. Engagement can also help build relationships and trust between the agency and the publics they serve.

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Effective engagement involves taking the time to understand the interests and values of potentially affected parties

This helps generate solutions that are more reflective of broader interests, while also building understanding between different groups of one another’s perspectives. Increased dialogue and understanding between diverse interested parties can lead to improved trust and cooperation.

Harnessing multiple viewpoints, experiences, and forms of knowledge helps identify issues and concerns early in the planning process

Effective engagement processes provide a constructive place to identify areas of disagreement – whether between the agency and stakeholders or amongst the stakeholders themselves – and explore opportunities to address those disagreements.

If proposed solutions to a problem reflect public and stakeholder input and interests, they are also more likely to experience support

Increasing public buy-in to collaboratively designed agreements promotes shared implementation and increased compliance.

When done well, public participation helps to teach agencies and stakeholders meaningful and collaborative ways to work with one another, manage difficult decisions, and resolve disputes

Agencies and interested parties learn to appreciate the other’s values and interests and underlying positions.

Considerations for Engagement

Engagement can lead to better decision-making processes and outcomes, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Each situation is different and will require a different approach. The following list highlights some key considerations when considering whether and how to engage the public.

Increasing levels of participation have the potential to result in better outcomes and relationships. However, they also require more time, effort, and resources from both the agency and stakeholders.

Situation analyses and stakeholder assessments can help identify the timeline, decision process, and key people to involve. This can help determine the appropriate levels of engagement and techniques to use and indicate the human and other resources necessary to see the process through.

The Involve, Collaborate, and Empower levels of engagement require more time, energy, and potentially resources on both the part of the agency and participants. Everyone involved will likely need to participate in more meetings, be prepared to share more information, have follow-up conversations between meetings, and potentially help implement shared decisions.

Public engagement does not guarantee better decisions, particularly if pursued half-heartedly or without buy-in and support of the process

Before embarking on an engagement process, agency staff should ask themselves:

What information do we need from the public to inform this decision? How are we going to use that information?
Are we ready to listen to perspectives and opinions that are different than our own?
Are we willing to try new approaches and ideas?
Will our supervisors support the process and decisions that come out of it?
Do we have the right expertise and skills to carry out the needed engagement or do we need help?

Some pressing problems call for immediate action and there simply may not be time to carry out meaningful public engagement

Additionally, in some cases, the agency may have a very narrow or limited decision space that does not accommodate public input. A situation analysis and answering the questions above can help assess the urgency of the issue and determine whether and how the public can be part of the decision-making process.

Engagement will not necessarily resolve controversy

Higher levels of engagement, such as collaboration and empowerment may be difficult if not impossible on highly controversial issues.

Working to build understanding, trust, and agreement around highly controversial issues requires investing significant time and energy into relationship and trust-building.

Experts in conflict resolution can be particularly helpful for addressing contentious issues. See the Find an Expert page for more information.

Reasons Public Engagement Processes Fail

Effective engagement processes do not just happen – they have to be designed and supported. Research on engagement processes indicates several common reasons why engagement processes fail.

Incomplete or shallow engagement can do more harm than good in terms of building trusting relationships with partners and interested parties

Common reasons engagement processes fail include:

Not fully committing to an engagement process;
Not being willing to try new and different approaches;
Not really incorporating public input into a decision.

Insufficient attention to process design

Poorly designed and poorly run engagement processes can lead to a lack of participation, lack of learning and trust-building, frustration on the part of the public, and delays in decision-making.

Externalities

Sometimes the engagement process fails because of circumstances beyond the control of agencies and/or stakeholders (e.g. natural disasters, changes in political leadership).