If a tsunami is hitting your city now. Would you hold public engagement meetings to decide about the best evacuation routes?

I hope not.

In this blog post, I talk about tokenizing Public Engagement: Why It Happens and How to Fix It.

Disclaimer: I am a strong proponent of community engagement, when done responsibly and effectively.

The Current Reality

Over the past several decades, policy and planning organizations have been pushed to engage the public more actively— to create democratic processes that build consensus among diverse stakeholders. When done right, public engagement builds trust and empowers communities to shape policies, plans, and regulations that impact their lives. But are we achieving these outcomes? No.

Trust in government has reached historic lows

In the United States, public trust in the federal government has reached historic lows in the past few years. As of April 2024, only 22% of Americans reported trusting the government in Washington to do what is right "just about always" (2%) or "most of the time" (21%) Pew Research Center.

This shows a notable contrast from 1964, when approximately 77% of Americans expressed such trust. The decline began in the 1960s and has persisted, with trust levels remaining below 30% since 2007.

This erosion of trust is not unique to the United States. In the United Kingdom, trust in political institutions has also diminished. A survey conducted between September and October 2023 revealed that only 36% of respondents trusted Parliament, a 13-percentage point drop from 2021 The Times. Similarly, trust in the government decreased by 11 points to 31% during the same period.

Interestingly, this is a period that Federal, State, and local governments are pushed to do more public engagement. Our engagement efforts have clearly failed building trust.

What is Tokenized Public Engagement?

Tokenized engagement is about superficial public involvement. Tokenized engagement is not rich enough to make positive impacts, such as community empowerment or trust building.

Tokenized engagement damages trust between the community and government. And, it happens too often— mostly unintentionally.

Why Public Engagement is Tokenized

Tokenized engagement is happening despite how staff work hard to make it right. And, to be fair, there are so many great examples of genuine and impactful public engagement done by government! For example, organizations like the California Governor’s Office of Land-use and Climate Innovations (LCI) and Strategic Growth Council (SGC) have set a high bar for public engagement.

Tokenized engagement happens due to various reasons, which usually is a combination of the following:

1. It’s resource and time-intensive, while highly expected.

Public engagement is time-consuming and expensive. In many cases, it requires skilled staff who know facilitation and conflict resolution. It requires trust building, and, that needs time.

In most cases these requirements are not built into projects’ timeline or budget. But, there is still expectation from governmental organizations to do it.

The result? Shallow, superficial engagement processes that check the box without creating real impact.

2. Ambitious staff get disappointed.

Academic institutions have pushed for genuine and inclusive public engagement as a value, without teaching students how to practically do it in a real world environment. Well-educated professionals push for genuine engagement practices in environments that are not ready for it. These professionals rightfully push for translating engagement documents to Spanish and Mandarin, and, ask for allocating reasonably high amount of resources for public engagement in organizations that are not ready for this or in projects with limited budget and timeline.

The result? This leads to shallow efforts that don’t work. Well-intentioned staff will loose their ambitions and follow the status-quo.

3. Lack of trust and real intentions get in the way.

And, of course, some organizations engage the public mainly to meet regulatory requirements or improve optics. This happens for various reasons such as fear of public input influencing outcomes or a lack of trust between institutions and communities. Our institutions, especially government organizations, do not always feel comfortable sharing the decision making power. And, lack of trust plays the big role in this.

California refers to public engagement as "Listening Sessions." The state chose this terminology to indicate it listens to the public, but listening does not commit to action. The term "listening sessions" shows intention but makes no promises. Meaningful engagement demands commitment—our governments haven't prepared themselves to make these commitments. Yet we shouldn't rush to blame them for this reluctance.

Engage or not to engage?

Hard to answer. We must focus on impact and consider intended outcomes to determine if and what type of engagement to do.

Community engagement must serve the public. If it fails to do its job, should we continue doing it—especially knowing that poor implementation (tokenization) creates negative effects?

Public engagement doesn't work in every situation, and we shouldn't force government organizations to conduct public engagement at any cost. I understand this sparks controversy, and we must discuss it.

During a major flood or tsunami, government staff make immediate decisions about saving lives and creating evacuation routes without public engagement. No one (I hope) sues the government for not holding extensive public meetings during emergency response. Climate change and homelessness present similar emergencies, though at a different scale. You get my point!

Government organizations must serve the public, not the processes that are designed to serve the public.

If your organization lacks the capacity for meaningful engagement, should you still proceed with a shallow process? Tokenistic efforts waste resources and harm trust.

Focus on impact. It’s fine to get sued, if it allows you to support the community.

Three Steps for designing targeted public engagement processes:

There are tons of great guides for doing public engagement. And, I don’t want to repeat them here. The following is not an engagement guide. It provides three simple steps to guide designing your engagement process in a targeted way.

1. Clarify the What (Impact)

Define the clear outcomes you want from public engagement. Is it to:

Build trust with youth in frontline communities?
Create consensus on the location of a new park?
Mobilize support for a new tax measure to improve public transit?

Strat with the impact or outcome and go backwards. If your main goals is to build trust with youth, do you have enough young staff and time to work with youth communities? Do you have enough funding to hire facilitators for your meetings? If not, can you achieve this outcome? If you can’t, consider changing the outcome and be more realistic about what you can achieve.

Without clarifying the impacts (and the what), the engagement process will fail.

2. Clarify the Who (People)

Identify the beneficiaries of the engagement process and the benefits they should gain. Specify:

Who is being engaged? Who are the main beneficiaries?
How will they benefit? What do they get?
By when will those benefits materialize?

Engagement without clear beneficiaries and benefits create confusion and loose public trust.

3. Clarify the How (Implementation)

Develop a simple, realistic plan to implement the engagement process. Do not be too ambitious:

Align the plan with the realities of your resources and environment.
Choose straightforward methods; overly complex processes often fail.
Ensure the plan commits to tangible and trackable outcomes.

The Risks of Doing It Wrong are High!

Tokenized public engagement leads to:

Erosion of trust: Superficial processes deepen skepticism toward government.
Wasted resources: Time and money are spent on activities with low return on investment in terms of public benefit. Also, government staff will gradually loose their purpose. Tokenistic approaches damages staff morale.
Favoring the powerful: Check-the-box practices often prioritize vocal or influential stakeholders rather than representing the general public.

Summary: Be strategic about IF/ HOW/ WHEN you engage the public

Focus on the impact — Serve and protect the public, not the processes that are expected to serve the public.

Tailor your engagement strategy to the project's specific needs and constraints. For instance, holding public meetings to democratically choose evacuation routes during a hurricane isn't practical. Similarly, you should customize your engagement efforts to the unique context of each project.
Be intentional about how, when, and if you must engage the public.
Embrace the risk of legal challenges if your actions align with serving the public interest.

Tokenized public engagement isn’t just ineffective; it’s harmful. If your organization lacks the capacity for authentic engagement, it might be wiser to postpone efforts rather than risk further damaging trust.

By clarifying A) outcomes, B) beneficiaries, and C) implementation processes, public engagement can achieve its intended purpose: creating solutions that benefit the target population.

Impact Over Process: Stop Engaging the Public and Start Serving Them!