Reaching out beyond the ‘professional meeting goer’. How do we ensure that the community decision-makers are representative?
I think this is probably one of the most common questions we’re asked. And at times we wish we had a nice little tool that we could give to everyone and say ‘there you go, use that and you’ll have perfect community representation’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that! We live in a democratic country where people have free will – you can’t force empowerment upon people – that’s a bit of an oxymoron! It’s virtually impossible to 100% guarantee complete representation of the community at anything and PB is no exception. However, like with other engagement mechanisms, there are various activities you can do. Some communities are easier for representation than others. ‘Hard to reach’ groups should be targeted through community development to promote PB to them in a way that engages with them. Asking for representation information (age, address, ethnicity etc) at events (on registration forms or feedback questionnaires for example) can help to monitor participation from event to event, and may help you target under-represented groups for the next event. Think about arranging transport for certain groups or providing crèche facilities so that those with children can come. Choose a date and time sensitively. If you are really concerned you can restrict the amount of funding for certain themes or require a minimum to be spent on certain themes (for example, older people and younger people, or projects for different neighbourhoods in a community) although this isn’t ideal as it moves away from the values of PB
