In the Spotlight: Elevating the Volume of Seldom-Heard Voices
There are around 200,000 charitable organisations in the UK and millions of volunteers associated with them. Irrespective of what they are called or what cause they are working for, they are willing parties, established by the free will of the citizens who are associated with common interests and/or other interests aiming to achieve shared civil, economic, social and cultural rights and not obtaining profits. From focusing on the welfare and development of a small village to calling out for world peace; from working on preserving culture to fighting for immigrants' rights. Whatever direction they are working towards, they all have one goal and that is to make the world a better places.
Kingfisher Commons is driven to support and raise awareness of these inspiring organisations in every possible way. To showcase the amazing work these organisations are doing, we are launching a Community Spotlight program. The program aims to celebrate the impact of special organisations that are working hard to raise the volume of seldom heard voices. They will be organisations that work with people that are often underrepresented to be heard through creative community engagement techniques.
Organisations in the Spotlight
If an organisation or even business springs to mind when you read the following… or perhaps it's you and the organisation you are a part of…let us know via email, Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook! We want to hear about organisations that:
- Raise the volume of seldom heard voices.
- Promote fairness, equity and inclusivity.
- Provide facilities to vulnerable and underprivileged people.
Anyone can nominate an organisation for the spotlight or nominate themselves.
Why Nominate?
We want to celebrate with you and contribute to you celebrating with all those that make your organisation special.
Those that are selected for the spotlight will be invited to participate in a recorded online interview, where they can share their beautiful work and celebrate their achievements with the world! They will be encouraged to share any tips or wisdom with others who are wanting to improve the way they engage with underrepresented and/or vulnerable groups.
We want to express our gratitude to these organisations by also gifting them a token of thanks in the form of postcards so that they get the love that they deserve and can also share the love with people who are important to the organisation.
We are looking forward to sharing all the amazing work that organisations do to make the world a better place!
Who wants to be consulted with anyway?
Quite often there is a concern about the lack of community and stakeholder consultation in various aspects of society. Those who represent a community (or plural communities) of people and shape the places they live are often criticised for not reaching those whose decision-making impacts. For example, this criticism often receives attention in the cases of local councillor representation, land use planning (Local Plan production), or development consultations. Of course, in these cases, these professionals are accountable to the public and have legal requirements to meet, however, often those who carry out consultation can often view it as a necessary process to go through - a tick box exercise - or they acknowledge the benefits of consulting, but are often pressed for time and resource to be able to do it effectively.
It can often be reported that “we put it out for consultation but very few people responded” and can often be followed up with “maybe they just don’t want to feed into the consultation.” But why? These are common scenarios:
- The consultee finds the consultation hard to engage with. Often, the survey is not in the right format for the consultee and may require some level of understanding before being able to respond. I have seen many complicated surveys for Local Plans, that are really not inviting for people who understand the planning system, let alone those who haven't seen a planning policy before.
- The general public is unaware of the consultation. The marketing (and branding) of the survey can be ineffective and simply responsive to outdated advice/legalities on where to promote consultation, e.g. in a printed newspaper or on a lamppost, however, they are many creative offline and online ways to promote a consultation now.
- The questions might be inappropriate or there may be too many. When consulting it is important to stick to the aims and objectives of the consultation and to avoid asking unnecessary, personal questions, and phrasing them badly. Asking too many can deter people from completing a survey.
- The value of feeding into a consultation is unknown. The respondents are unaware of how their input is going to make a difference or potentially, if there is a lack of trust, and perhaps feel like their input may be manipulated. Being clear on how the research is going to be used and follow-through in responding to the consultation is essential to building trust.
Of course, ineffective consultation leads to people feeling excluded and can lead to a decline in the reputation or experience of the organisation, product or service for businesses and organisations.
Conclusion: Generally, people don’t just want to be consulted with…
... they want to be involved.
Finally, carrying out effective community consultation means:
- Those who are seldom heard (hard to reach) or engaged with feel included.
- It will feed into change and inform decision making.
- Progress!.
Overall, during this time of ‘reset,’ where people have been reassessing their priorities and values and are perhaps keener to engage in consultations and attempt to get their voices heard. It really is a positive time to deliver efficient and responsive consultation.