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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I am frequently asked whether an arts organization can successfully engage communities with just one person assigned the responsibility for “engaging.” One answer, given with considerable trepidation is, “It depends.” If it’s a small organization, if community engagement is represented\/honored in all decision-making processes, if everyone in the organization maintains a commitment to engagement in all of their work, then “Maybe.” If not, the answer is “No.” Communities can easily sense when interest in working with them is limited. It is also true that engagement is demanding and can easily exhaust a person, mentally if not physically. Spreading the load is always a good idea.<\/p>\n
But there is another, practical reason that the one-person show is unwise. Community engagement is relationship building, and relationships are, inescapably, personal. Especially in the early years, if there is only one person working on the relationship, the community’s trust is in that person, not the organization. If that person leaves it is frequently the case that all, or nearly all, of the work put in will be lost. Indeed, if there is any suspicion that the person’s departure represents a step away from the community on the part of the organization, the relationship may end up being worse than if the engagement work had never been started.<\/p>\n
So, for a wide variety of reasons, it’s important that there be more than one face from the organization involved in engaging with communities\u2013new relationships as well as long-time ones. This could certainly include volunteers or board members. Not all contact has to be through staff members. But the contact must be spread among multiple people. Otherwise, the efforts at engagement may fall apart with the loss of the “designated engager.”<\/p>\n
Engage!<\/p>\n
Doug<\/p>\n
Photo:\u00a0 One Wo\/Man Band: Don’t put all of your engagement eggs in a single basket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"One Wo\/Man Band: Don't put all of your engagement eggs in a single basket.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[12,13,38,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-5227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-practice-of-engagement","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-community-engagement","10":"tag-management","11":"tag-relationships","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/OneManBand.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1mj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6371,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2021\/04\/engagement-readiness-quiz\/","url_meta":{"origin":5227,"position":0},"title":"Engagement Readiness Quiz","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A simple quiz in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder trial verdict to determine if your organization is ready for community engagement.","rel":"","context":"In "Overview"","block_context":{"text":"Overview","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/overview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Quiz.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4945,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/06\/engagement-terminology\/","url_meta":{"origin":5227,"position":1},"title":"Engagement Terminology","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"June 21, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"We need good definitions to make our work more effective. Here is an updated set from my perspective, for what it's worth.","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Dictionary-300x202.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5274,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2018\/05\/the-problem-of-engagement\/","url_meta":{"origin":5227,"position":2},"title":"The Problem of “Engagement”","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Effective engagement is rooted in relationship building with new communities, pursuit of mutual benefit with them, and inclusion of them in the design and implementation of projects.","rel":"","context":"In "Overview"","block_context":{"text":"Overview","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/overview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ProblemPostit-300x224.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4733,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/11\/who-benefits\/","url_meta":{"origin":5227,"position":3},"title":"Who Benefits?","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"November 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Definitions are important to me. That's probably a reflection of my former life as an academic. (Or, I suppose, it could be why I was an academic.) They've also become critical to my work as an advocate for community engagement. I have presented numerous attempts at defining things like audience\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dictionary","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Dictionary.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4997,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/08\/the-boards-role-in-community-engagement-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":5227,"position":4},"title":"The Board’s Role in Community Engagement: II","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"August 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The board of directors can and should be a supportive resource for community engagement.","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/BoardOfDirs-300x199.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2831,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/05\/engagement-vocabulary-in-action\/","url_meta":{"origin":5227,"position":5},"title":"Engagement Vocabulary in Action","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In an effort to clarify the points from my last two posts (Engagement Vocabulary and Parsing Vocabulary), I'm going to try to describe the differences among audience development, audience engagement, and community engagement by using a specific work produced by an arts organization as an example. [But first, to re-repeat,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Examples"","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dictionary","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Dictionary-300x153.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5231,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227\/revisions\/5231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Attribution\"](\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/pw\/images\/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif\" "\\"Attribution\\""){kind=icon}
<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Some rights reserved<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0<\/span>andrewmalone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"