Top PR approaches for building community support
When organisations set out to regenerate towns and cities, one of the first obstacles they face is gaining community support for the changes they intend to create. As we know, the first two years are crucial.
This is even more important given the latest new towns announcement, as the original list of 12 becomes seven sites where major new development could happen.
As I’ve said before, collaboration with communities and other stakeholders is key to success with any regeneration programme.
Many interpret this as simply broadcasting a vision and proposals. But if you really want to garner community support, you need to go further than the trusty press release, or the draughty church hall event on a Thursday evening. You need a proper strategic approach.
This is why – in our humble opinion – comms professionals are best suited to delivering consultation and engagement projects, alongside planning consultants and the wider design team.
They understand that good PR is more than just the next headline or social post. Done well, it creates connections, builds relationships and moves projects forward.
It’s part of a longer-term commitment to inform, involve and inspire people who matter.
The tipping point – why minority support can help to shift the majority
To build genuine community support, it helps to understand how social change happens.
Research from the University of Pennsylvania provides a compelling insight into this. In a study published in science, Professor Damon Centola and his team demonstrated that a committed minority of around 25% is enough to create large-scale behavioural change. Below this threshold, attempts to shift the needle in the direction you need consistently fails. But once that 25% mark is reached, change can happen rapidly and decisively.
This is a powerful point: You don’t need everyone on board immediately. You need to build a critical mass who understand your message, support your goals, and will champion your narrative within wider community networks. For us, this means going where the positive energy is.
As a business rooted in meaningful engagement that builds support, we use three key principles that guide our work on all projects.
If you use these principles to guide your work, we’re confident that you’ll see the benefits. This post explains why and links to some examples of successful engagement that we’re proud to support.
Clear communication
We hate jargon and are always straight with people. We never use phrases like ‘translocating’ where ‘moving’ will do. And we don’t talk about ‘units’ or ‘stock’ instead of ‘homes’.
We appreciate, also, that some people want technical information and provide this in ways they can access. But simplicity and clarity is always our first port of call.
Our team of writers and former journalists combine lived experience of the communities in which we work with an understanding of what will work for people who live and work there.
Our engagement platform for a significant new community at Wisloe in Gloucestershire, is a good example of where technical detail is supported with clear information. Tens of thousands of visitors have used the site since its launch, with hundreds of people signing up for updates.
And we also are very proud of feedback at consultation events saying that our content was the best that local partners had seen.
Connecting with people
We’ll go where communities are, not where we want them to be. As I mentioned earlier, it’s about going where the energy is initially, to start to build that critical mass of support. Online, offline and in person, our teams engage at every level – from community events to ministerial meetings.
Recognising that most people will find out about a project online, our websites play a key role in supporting engagement. Colleagues also lead webinars, which attracted hundreds of people and generated more than 100 questions in one project we supported.
This is blended with a creative approach to engage stakeholders in person. Briefing meetings, roundtables, street stalls, community events and visiting people at home are all part of the mix, here.
Will this replace the traditional draughty church hall on a Thursday evening? While planning authorities expect them, there’s no sign of this happening across the board soon. But the task for comms practitioners is to find methods that people want to use.
Two-way communication
We don’t just broadcast, we listen (think about it like using the telephone, rather than the megaphone), and we use communities’ feedback to shape better outcomes.
Our teams go into communities, have conversations and respond to hundreds of emails on projects.
We’re also using online tools to capture people’s feedback at an early stage. On one project we supported in Cheddar, we collected more than 1,700 responses to proposals to temporarily close part of the town to traffic. Sensitive handling and building support with key groups helped to build strong support for the proposals.
In some cases, we also use social listening to get a sense of what people are saying about a town/ city, project, brand or topics in an area (like housing in Bristol, for example).
This helps to build insight that shapes our clients’ proposals.
Don’t leave your engagement to chance
Community support isn’t gained by chance. It’s built through time, effort, and a clear strategy. Remember, trust takes time to build, and moments to squander.
When teams…
- Develop an approach rooted in transparency, using all the tools in the comms toolbox.
- Build a critical mass of at least 25% who understand and support your vision to start with.
- Craft clear narratives.
- Engage people in the right spaces.
- And treat communication as a two-way relationship (telephone rather than megaphone).
…they create conditions where trust can grow and opinions can shift positively. And that’s when change can happen in the right places for the right reasons.
If you want to find out more about how PR can successfully support your next consultation project, download our guide here.
And if you need a trusted partner, or critical friend on an upcoming project, book in for one of our FREE 30-minute planning strategy sessions (worth £750) with a senior member of the team. We’ll also provide a recommendations paper free of charge, too.
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