Awaiting Report 22-40, regarding a Community Engagement Update

PT Outreach

Workers (9) DPW Relations Project Administrators for Community Relations (2) Comm- unications Dir. Strategic Planning and Internal Public Information Officer Dir. Media Relations,

Content Strategy

4 TP+T Project Administrator for Relations Legend: Staff that provide functional support to other departments Note: Many staff embedded in these departments regularly do community engagement work, even if that is not their primary function (e.g., TPT Street Design Managers, CDD Project Managers, DHSP Youth Programs, Mayor’s Summer Jobs Program)

Digital Media

Marketing Community Engagement Team (CET) outreach workers are our colleagues on the front-line 5

CET @ DHSP

CET @ CDD

Source: Inspired by Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) framework

6 Community Engagement: The process of using different strategies to make decision-making and collaboration in a community more accessible for all 1 Outreach: to provide information regarding opportunities, issues, and/or solutions to the community in ways that are accessible to its members Engagement: two-way communication between community leaders and members to gain opinions about issues, projects, processes, or ideas that can inform policy discussions and decision-making Empowerment: to give community members the tools, resources, and support to participate in the spaces where the key decisions that affect them are made Over time, we’ve developed a good sense of what successful community engagement looks like, and it spans three areas: outreach, engagement, and empowerment 7 1.

OUTREACH DPW Spotlight: the DPW’s outreach raises awareness around routine maintenance, construction, infrastructure projects, and new services and initiatives 8 1. OUTREACH CET@ DHSP Spotlight: Strong focus on supporting families with young children and providing both individual and community-wide support CDD Spotlight: CET@CDD and creating flexible opportunities for building relationships and engaging community members 9 2. ENGAGEMENT 10 2. ENGAGEMENT 2018 TP+T hires first 2020

Cycling Safety Ordinance precipitates TP+T-led

community engagement

TP+T hires Street Design Project Managers

with a community engagement role 2020–2023 TP+T builds our engagement capacity and improves our outreach, learning more with each project TP+T Spotlight: Cycling Safety Ordinance sparks need for increased engagement capacity 11 Budget Spotlight: Participatory Budgeting empowers community members to decide how to spend part of the City's budget 3. EMPOWERMENT 12 HRC Spotlight: the Human Rights Commission creates opportunities to empower residents with information and access to City services 3. EMPOWERMENT

Annual Fair Housing Event

This annual collaboration led to the development of the citywide Housed IN Cambridge campaign. In FY23, we expanded access and engagement with the help of both Community Engagement Teams and regular outreach at the Community Learning Center.

Which resulted in: • Record doubling of attendance at the annual event • Translation and interpretation use for 11 different languages • Quarterly drop-in hours at the library with regular use of interpretation to increase access to vital housing information … With departments … Within the community engagement function ▪Varied access to City resources (e.g., outreach workers, like C3 and CETs, and contact lists) and varying familiarity with different engagement methods and best practices (e.g., writing in plain language, managing contentious public meetings) ▪Limited awareness of what’s happening in other departments (e.g., events, projects) ▪Community engagement not always embedded in early project planning ▪Inconsistent, broad definitions of community engagement and success and few standards for measuring and collecting data ▪Varied levels of community engagement expertise and training among project teams 13 Through our work over the summer, we identified two areas where improved coordination can enhance the City’s community engagement function Tools ▪Create a shared folder in One Drive for community engagement staff, collating the following: “How to” guides on different community engagement methods (e.g., public meeting, pop-ups, plain language) leveraging existing content and resources Excel spreadsheet summarizing City technology and other resources (e.g., language access) that can be used for community engagement Excel spreadsheet summarizing physical assets (e.g., easels) and their location Excel spreadsheet documenting different outreach contact lists and who to contact Calendar documenting outreach events across all departments 1 Success/ Metrics ▪Finalize a definition of community engagement in the City of Cambridge, define success, and identify the appropriate metrics for different engagement activities through conversations with departments and community engagement staff Training ▪Launch a training program for City staff to educate departments about the community engagement function, resources/best practices, and expectations for frontline staff when engaging the community Work with community engagement staff to develop learning objectives and a curriculum, leveraging existing resources like DHSP’s “Making Connections” training and CDD’s handbook/training Leverage meetings like Leadership Together or CAEII to elevate importance 14 … And we propose three workstreams, community engagement tools, training, and metrics, to capitalize on these opportunities: Questions?

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