Engage the Community

CMO Awardees submitted a Community Outreach Plan that summarized their outreach efforts and activities to engage community residents as they prepare for the launch of their project and throughout the project’s operations.

This guide helps you expand upon your plan so that you can bring the community into decision-making around things like project siting, pricing, a launch event, and other project milestones. This guide also provides guidance for fostering project identity, addressing institutional inequalities, building capacity with residents, creating community buy-in, and developing sustainable ridership. That trust is imperative to making your program successful.

If you are an awardee, please contact your cohort facilitator for additional support. 

CONTENTS

Step 1 – Set Community Engagement Goals

Step 2 – Revisit Community Context and Principles for Engagement

Step 3 – Plan for Required Surveys

Step 4 – Choose Engagement Activities

Step 5 – Measuring Project Success

Step 6 – Move to the Next Guide in the Toolkit – Finalize Contracts & Procurement

Considerations

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Step 1

Set Community Engagement Goals

Estimated Time and Resources
Time: 10 Minutes
Resources Required For the Worksheet: Mobility Project Team, Project Budget, Laptop
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About This Step

Build on your Community Outreach Plan by building your engagement timeline, identifying target participants, and establishing engagement goals. 

TIP: Download the worksheet for a reflective and important exercise on determining who you would like to involve in the community engagement process (e.g., who you want to inform, get feedback from, and lead specific project elements).

Download The Worksheet

Step 2

Revisit Community Context and Principles for Engagement

Estimated Time and Resources
Time: 5 Minutes
Resources Required For the Worksheet: N/A
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About This Step

Review your Community Transportation Needs Assessment, study local transportation planning efforts, and attend community meetings as an observer. Remember that as the number of project partners increases, it is the project team that knows their communities best. Learn about how best to facilitate a community-led project.

TIP: Attend more community meetings to get context about the community. Saying nothing will get you recognized as someone ready to listen, and not purely to extract from the community.

Step 3

Plan for Required Surveys

Estimated Time and Resources
Time: 2 Minutes
Resources Required For the Worksheet: N/A
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About This Step

The CMO Voucher Pilot Program requires that awardees collect information from community members participating in engagement activities and from those using the services. Learn and prepare for the survey requirements at the onset of your mobility project. 

TIP: For more tips on survey design and deployment, see the Community Transportation Needs Assessment Survey Guide.

Step 4

Choose Engagement Activities

Estimated Time and Resources
Time: 15 Minutes
Resources Required For the Worksheet: Mobility Project Team, Project Budget, Laptop
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About This Step

Review your milestones, context, and core principles for community engagement and identify the specific community engagement events or activities that best support the goals and attract the intended audience to participate.

TIP: Download the worksheet for a list of activities or community engagement ideas. Consider cultural relevance, language, virtual options, and health and safety measures while planning engagement activities. 

Download The Worksheet

Step 5

Measuring Project Success

Estimated Time and Resources
Time: 15 Minutes
Resources Required For the Worksheet: Mobility Project Team, Laptop
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About This Step

Over your project period, an easy place to start evaluating is to go back to your community engagement goals and see if you were able to meet them fully or in part. Remember your post-event surveys!

TIP: Download the worksheet for a project team reflective about evaluating the community engagement that has been conducted. 

Download The Worksheet

Step 6

Move to the Next Guide in the Toolkit

Time: 1 Minutes
Resources Required For the Worksheet: N/A

About This Step

Congratulations on bringing the community into the decision-making process! The next guide in the toolkit is the Finalize Contracts & Procurement guide. Use this guide to establish contracts and procurements that support good partnerships and help meet the mobility project’s goals.

Considerations

Feel free to repurpose, change, or modify any of these activities to best support you with community engagement.

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