Agenda

Engaging a wide variety of stakeholders over many years is increasingly complex. Transform your approach to consultation, engagement and stakeholder management to push your projects forward. Create a roadmap to:

• Approach community consultations on projects that could have a significant impact on the community and are often controversial
• Develop relationships with Indigenous groups
• Know what works, what doesn’t and what should be avoided in consultation and engagement processes

Transform your consultation strategy to engage citizens better.

Choosing the optimal level of engagement can be challenging. Tailor your approach to achieve the best results from the resources available. Take back to your office strategies to:

• Evaluate your mandate, objectives and stakeholder groups to determine the appropriate level of engagement to achieve the results you need
• Formulate an appropriate approach to fit the scope or stage of your project
• Discover the budgetary commitments associated with different types and sizes of consultation formats and levels of engagement

Create a tailored consultation strategy that meets your needs and budget.

Getting the public excited about an unknown event can be challenging, especially in a crowded national landscape with marquee Olympic and Pan-Am competition in recent memory.  But, including a mandate to transform public opinion and bring about lasting change…that requires a truly special approach. Learn how the Invictus Games partnered with Maru/Matchbox to leverage the power of insight and public consultation through every stage of the event’s planning, from the pre-Games strategy through to the post-Games wrap-up.  Take back to your organization ways to:

• Bring your outreach research programs to life
• Leverage insight-based storytelling to tailor your marketing plans
• Keep tracking relevant by tailoring metrics to the mandate – even as they evolve

Create a reason for the public to believe.  Find ways to engage and empower.

Identifying all the stakeholders you need to include is critical to the results you hope to achieve. Improve your stakeholder identification process and achieve balanced results. Adopt best practices to:

• Gain insight into each group and their needs
• Ensure that the stakeholders match your mandate
• Determine the optimal number of stakeholders

Select the right stakeholders to provide real insight

Engage in strategic dialogue with fellow consultation practitioners and experts. In small groups, explore best practices, innovations and tools to:

• Engage the silent majority
• Deal with a lack of resources
• Mitigate irreconcilable differences between stakeholders

Walk away with novel strategies and a renewed commitment to engagement

Examine best practices and lessons learned from consultations of all types – large, small, national and regional. Explore the role of technology in today’s consultations, how you reach stakeholders, and affect change. Develop strategies to:

• Use handheld devices for real-time reactions
• Run engagements fully online
• Discuss the role of traditional face-to-face engagement

Explore how you can use technology in your consultations

The City of Summerside, PEI has undertaken initiatives to engage residents in open discussions about budget priorities and other topics of municipal concern. Enhance your strategy for citizen engagement while improving transparency, accountability, and public relations. Adopt best practices to:

• Use citizen participation as a tool for policy development
• Develop an approach that has proven successful
• Incorporate good planning, creative thinking, inclusive methodology, and leadership commitment to achieve success’

Enhance transparency while engaging your stakeholders.

In 2016, the Bank of Canada launched a public consultation campaign asking Canadians to nominate iconic Canadian women to appear on a new bank note. Advance your plans and strategy though this ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at the planning that went into this public consultation campaign. Adopt best practices to:

• Determine the channels and platforms – traditional and digital – for building awareness of the campaign that best fits your goals
• Ensure your engagement strategy aligns with your mandate, and consistent messaging is maintained across all channels and platforms
• Ensure that the results are representative of a wide variety of viewpoints

Build your consultation strategy from the ground up to ensure it engages citizens in a meaningful way.

There are many tools in our tool kit as public consultation and engagement professionals – from asking the right questions to facilitating difficult conversations – but do we have everything we need to begin addressing the toughest challenges that we face today? We are in a moment where our communities are increasingly fractured and divided, where we work with a public that is deeply cynical and apathetic, and where there is a crisis of faith in government, in political power, and in the bureaucracy that keeps our society running.

Waterfront Toronto is currently engaged in a research and development process that will lead to a new way of thinking about public consultation – and ultimately about how we build our cities – one that grounds their work in compassion and a commitment to working with communities to co-create a new and inspiring idea of “public good."

The day will wrap up with a discussion on what to start, what to stop and what to continue doing in your organization.

Discuss with your peers the topics you would like to participate in for Birds of A Feather on Day 2

Unwind and mingle with the delegates and speakers at our exclusive end-of-the-day reception. Bring your business cards!