There are many benefits to building an effective community engagement strategy. 

• You engender trust between citizens and government, which improves public behavior.
• You attain successful outcomes on toxic issues.
• You develop better and more creative ideas and solutions.
• You create involved citizens instead of demanding customers.
• You promote democracy and community building.

But easier is said than done in creating a successful engagement strategy and while there are a variety of resources available that can assist managers in developing one for their communities, getting started can be difficult. So to help make the process easier and to help you put community engagement into action, we have developed this infographic from the article "Tackling Wicked Problems Takes Resident Engagement."

Authors Michael Huggins and Cheryl Hilvert note that there is no single best way to achieve engagement or one technique or format that serves all engagement purposes. Recent public engagement research from a variety of sources, however, consistently suggests similar types of strategies for any engagement effort.

Building upon these research findings, here are 10 suggestions that managers should consider in building an effective engagement strategy for their communities. For your convenience, you can print the infographic here. 

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