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Community engagement
One of our aims is to create engaged communities. We want to ensure that communities become more capable of controlling their own circumstances and that the community sector is better able to play a constructive role in society.
CDF defines community engagement as developing and sustaining a working relationship between public bodies and community groups so that both understand and act on the needs or issues that the community experiences.
We believe that engaging communities in this way leads to:
- better decision-making
- reaching excluded communities
- mobilising community-based expertise and resources
- sustainable solutions to difficult problems
- encouraging ownership by communities
- empowering communities to address issues that affect them
Our challenge
We believe that for engagement to be effective, it must involve communities at a local level, particularly those that are deprived or marginalised. We know from experience and research that current methods of community engagement do not properly involve people from a broad range of backgrounds.
Too often, engagement is interpreted as little more than consultation. Community development has a key role to play in helping communities and public bodies engage better with one another. For more information, read our briefing paper on community development and empowerment.
Our role
We are working to develop better infrastructure through partnerships for community development. The National Empowerment Partnership, Community Development Challenge and our role in the Community Sector Coalition all contribute to this work.
Contact: Michael Pitchford, Head of Engaged Communities
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