Information provision
Providing information in a timely and targeted manner can be a huge benefit to communities if the information reaches the right people in a way they can understand and respond to.
Informing communities is an important task
Sometimes your public participation goal is simply to inform.
- You may have a decision to announce or new information to communicate, and you want it to reach the people who are affected or could benefit from that knowledge.
- You may be at an early stage of participation, where you want to provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding an issue/problem, alternatives, opportunities and solutions.
- You could be at the end of a consultation or collaborative process, where you want people to know how their input affected the end result and why, and how things will move forward.
At a simple level, you need to be communicating the who, what, when, where and how of an issue.
This requires effective communication planning, where you identify who your audiences are, and target your approach to those audiences. This may impact on the language you choose, the means of communication (written, visual, face-to-face, electronic, etc), your choice of messenger and timing.
In most instances, you will have communications expertise available to assist you through this process - either in-house or from outside advisors - so this website does not go into detail on this topic, but it does offer some pointers for communicating with the community and voluntary sector.
Getting your messages out
Word-of-mouth and viral marketing are particularly active in the community sector, so place your messages in key locations where others can copy and refer them to others.
- Publish your media releases on the New Zealand government website.
- Publish your announcements on CommunityNet Aotearoa.
- Promote your news or events on the Public Sector Intranet if you think other government agencies may have effective networks with community groups or be interested in your issue.
- Send your announcements and news to the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector to promote though its networks and electronic newsletter.
- Contribute content for publication by others in their regular communications and newsletters to the community and voluntary sector.
