We’ve identified four common areas where you can expand your impact in public sector planning and public engagement projects.

By Elizabeth Schuster, Environmental Economist

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Public sector leaders: I imagine you feel a lot of pressure right now. You have to show more positive impact with fewer resources. And while engaging residents is rewarding, hearing community voices can feel like a never-ending task.

We will not promise you any silver bullets, because we deeply understand that public engagement and planning projects take effort and intention. Still, we can share a suite of small opportunities to help you more efficiently use resources and expand your local impact for both community well-being and green space. 

A decade of working with park districts, nature preserves, and food system programs has revealed four consistent lessons to help you more effectively leverage the projects you are already pursuing.

Human-Centric Planning

Centering residents with dignity isn’t a new concept, but it is often misunderstood. Human-centric planning means meaningful engagement, not just more communication.

Education and Outreach Manager with the City of Cleveland, Philena Seldon, recently said:

“When people see themselves in the outcome, participation becomes ownership. People support what they help create.” 

That is the critical missing piece. Engagement is not obligatory, but when done well, meaningful engagement helps make implementation more successful. It’s a shift in thinking to “How can community members be co-creators on this project?”

Case study: Community engagement for the Cleveland Climate Action Plan Update

During the community engagement for the Cleveland Climate Action Plan update, we facilitated roundtable discussions across six different neighborhoods, collecting a total of 616 comments from residents. One of our ingredients for success was partnering with community-based organizations (CBOs). The CBOs have more in-depth knowledge of the local community and helped us choose an accessible location, day of the week, time of day, and to design a set of incentives to encourage greater participation.

Many participants noted that they would not have come if it were not for the personalized invitation from the CBO in their neighborhood. Because of the CBOs, we engaged more residents and initiated partnerships with organizations who may also choose to help with implementation. (More details can be found here, under case study 2).

Community & Economic Resilience

It turns out, most public engagement and planning projects have an opportunity to also enhance community and economic resilience. In other words, even when resilience is not the primary objective of a project, there are often opportunities to weave in resilience as an added outcome. Think of it as a lens that can be applied to almost any project. One example from our portfolio highlights this lens in action.

Case study: Planning for the Lost Valley Nature Park

During phase 1, the project team led a stakeholder engagement process involving 80 Manville, New Jersey residents to get feedback on how to improve the Lost Valley Nature Park site. A sustainability committee was also formed, including diverse representation that spanned a local university, the Borough government, nonprofits, businesses, and residents. This strengthening of the social fabric is a step towards increasing community resilience.

The project was also designed with trees and green infrastructure for stormwater management to support flood resilience. Further, direct connections were made between the park and downtown businesses in an effort to bolster local spending, which contributed to economic resilience. Click here to learn more about the project.

Nature-based solutions 

When public agencies and local governments frame nature as “infrastructure,” it helps unlock different types of funding and aligns with broader local government goals around public health and economic development. 

In practice, this means looking for opportunities to integrate nature-based solutions in planning and engagement projects. There are many examples, including restoring a wetland to reduce flooding to nearby homes; planting trees to improve respiratory health of urban residents; and creating new parks & green spaces that improve the value of nearby homes. The concept of nature as infrastructure also includes complementary inputs like facilities and trails, as described in the example below.

Case study: Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD)

Covering 8,000 square miles across 18 counties, the MWCD focuses on reducing flooding, expanding recreation, and improving water quality. 

In 2023, MWCD asked the Energy Policy Center of Cleveland State University to conduct an economic impact assessment. The study assessed the economic impact on the region of both construction projects and operations by MWCD in those 18 counties from 2014 through 2022.

While this case study includes both passive use of natural resources and resource extraction, the positive impact is impressive. The total direct economic impact is $486MM, meaning that each dollar invested by MWCD was “re-spent” over 2.67 times before leaving the regional economy. Those dollars also supported 1,092 jobs and $74MM in income. Today, MWCD continues to re-invest in conservation, recreation and flood mitigation initiatives across the watershed. 

Link to the full Cleveland State University report here, and more on Sustainable Economies’ partnership with MWCD here.

Shared Goals & Partnerships

Partnerships are also not a new concept. But doing partnerships well is not a given. One of our favorite success stories of shared goals and partnerships comes from Summit County. 

During our partnership with Summit Metro Parks Strategic planning, we engaged almost 80 community partners in a two-phase process. We engaged them early to gather feedback on vision and opportunities, then returned at the end to share 90% complete goals. This allowed for more alignment around shared goals and stronger commitment to partnerships.