Community Engagement Toolkit: Essentials for Planning & Facilitating Meaningful Conversations
Photo Credit: Colonie Senior Services Center, Inc., Colonie, NY
Looking for ways to connect with your community to talk about transportation?
Providing transportation that meets the needs of everyone in the community can be challenging. Connecting with community members and organizations from all areas of your service area is essential to providing accessible transportation. The Community Engagement Toolkit offers a structured approach and useful tools to discuss how well local transportation options are meeting the transportation needs of individuals in the community.
About the Community Engagement Toolkit
National Symposium meeting, Omaha, NE, Aug 2023
In 2023, NADTC facilitated a National Symposium by selecting six communities to convene locally facilitated meetings to talk about community transportation. The meetings were attended by local stakeholders representing transportation providers, community partners, advocates and community members who gathered to discuss, exchange ideas and identify promising practices on issues that impact a transportation throughout the community.
Each community that participated in the national symposium agreed to coordinate, facilitate and evaluate the local meetings within the following structure:
- Recruit stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to participate in a community meeting.
- As a group, view a presentation recorded by a national speaker and provided by NADTC.
- Facilitate a discussion on how well local transportation systems programs are meeting the needs of community members using discussion questions provided by NADTC.
- Culminate the meeting by developing next steps the community will take to address identified issues and work towards more accessible transportation.
With the success of the six community meetings, NADTC is now making the Community Engagement materials available to any community who wishes to take steps towards improved transportation programs. Please register to gain access to the toolkit to help you plan and facilitate a community meeting in your area.
What’s Included in the Toolkit
- Meeting Facilitation Guide to help plan and prepare for a community meeting, including an accessible meeting checklist.
- Sample Agenda to plan the flow of the meeting.
- Recruitment Strategies to help choose attendees with varying perspectives, expertise and influence.
- Discussion Guide that provides questions to kickstart a conversation about local community transportation programs as well as tips for facilitating the discussion.
- Action Plan Tutorial and Template for developing an action plan to guide the group in continued work on improving transportation programs.
- Participant Welcome Letter that can be customized and sent to each participant who has agreed to attend the meeting.
To gain free access to the Community Engagement Toolkit you must register by clicking the button below. You will be asked to provide your name, organization name, email and zip code. You will then receive an email with a link to the toolkit. A member of the NADTC staff may contact you about your experience hosting a community meeting and using the toolkit.
Register for the Community Engagement Toolkit
With our goal of promoting the availability and accessibility of transportation options for all, NADTC thanks you for your efforts to improve transportation in your community.