Overview

This standard is about delivering community engagement activities for a creative or cultural organisation. This is to encourage new target audiences, customers or visitors to engage with your work or to develop ongoing relationships with current community groups. It is also about providing your current audiences, customers or visitors with activities which they will benefit from, and enjoy.

It includes researching previous success, identifying barriers, working with communities, planning engagement activities, aims, objectives and timescales, developing inclusive programmes and evaluating success.

This standard is for anyone who delivers community engagement for a creative or cultural organisation.

Performance criteria

You must be able to:

  1. use reliable information to identify your organisation's local and regional audiences and communities and their activities and interests
  2. use reliable information to research the success of community programmes, exhibitions and events from previous engagement activities
  3. identify how `barriers' that inhibit engagement of all parts of communities can be overcome in line with organisational diversity and inclusion policies
  4. work with communities and colleagues to identify engagement activities relevant to local needs
  5. work with appropriate people to develop an engagement plan which specifies engagement activities, aims, objectives and timescales
  6. develop programmes which relate to the interests of community audiences, integrating events or programmes with other engagement activities when appropriate
  7. make sure programmes are inclusive of all community members in line with organisational diversity and inclusion policies
  8. work with appropriate people in the organisation to identify and obtain finance and funding for engagement activities
  9. use marketing methods appropriate to target audiences when marketing is required, working with marketing colleagues when required
  10. develop ongoing networks and sharing of practice for community engagement with relevant colleagues in the sector
  11. provide practical opportunities for improving communities understanding of your work
  12. collect and collate relevant information to evaluate the success of community engagement programmes against aims and objectives

Knowledge and understanding

You need to know and understand:                       

  1. why you and your organisation have chosen to engage with communities
  2. how to identify local and regional audiences, customers or visitors and their needs
  3. the importance and benefits of engaging community
  4. how to engage with and work directly with communities and community organisations
  5. various methods and types of engagement
  6. the benefits, uses and disadvantages of technology in community engagement, including alternative approaches for those who don’t have access to it
  7. the potential problems encountered by people with mobility, hearing, sight impairment, autism spectrum disorder or specific learning difficulties
  8. the different strategies available to engage people with special needs
  9. how to develop an approach to engaging with other local organisations
  10. how to use training and/or standard frameworks to deliver best practice
  11. how to engage with people and communities in a respectful way
  12. models of research that can contribute to organisational and community learning
  13. how to evaluate your community engagement methods
  14. how to find out about new approaches to professional practice and community activities
  15. uses of self-evaluation as a way of learning together and improving practice