Effective Community Engagement: A Toolbox for Local Elected Officials
Do you aspire to have more active participation in your local government processes? Do you feel like your citizens are disengaged, or is your concept of community engagement framed solely by what the Open Meetings Law either requires or allows?
In this interactive webinar, you will learn that community engagement is a vital part of democracy. Your citizens judge the value of government based on what they see and experience; they learn how important government is when they have the opportunity to actually be a part of it.
Elected officials can create inviting and accessible avenues for citizen engagement if armed with some actionable tools that help make it doable for all.
In this workshop, you will receive a toolkit and other resources to help create effective community engagement strategies. Participants will:
- Learn how to assess their civic eco-system.
- Understand the differences between citizen engagement and public participation.
- Identify different strategies for policy-making engagement and service delivery engagement.
- Explore opportunities related to citizen academies, advisory boards and committees, public agency engagement, and elected official engagement.
- Discuss electronic tools that can improve community engagement.
- Identify resources that can help even the most under-resourced communities.
LELA Level: This webinar is a 201 level course in the Local Elected Leaders Academy. Participating elected officials will receive 3 credits towards their Master level recognition.
Members of Civic Federal Credit Union (Civic) and Local Government Federal Credit Union (LGFCU), who are local government employees, are eligible to apply for a scholarship towards tuition for conferences, classes, and seminars offered by the School of Government. There are four deadlines to submit applications:
- March 1 (for courses starting between April 1 and June 30)
- June 1 (for courses starting between July 1 and September 30)
- September 1 (for courses starting between October 1 and December 31)
- December 1 (for courses starting between January 1 and March 31)
The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners provides cost offsets for county elected officials to attend LELA courses. For information on this discount please click the link below.
