Resource Spotlight: Community Listening Sessions

A big part of developing a livability project in your community is getting buy-in… if your community isn’t on board with what’s planned, getting your project off the ground can have a whole other set of challenges!

A great way to gather information from your community is through a listening session. Community-based organizations and municipalities use listening sessions to inform people about important issues, to build support for a cause, and to discuss potential solutions to problems facing their communities. Such gatherings enable the team to collect information from a cross-section of the community to guide planning and develop a broader base of support. Community listening sessions can be conducted during any phase of a livability effort to:

  • Explore local issues and learn about a community’s thoughts, perceptions, and desires for tackling a livability issue

  • Gather feedback from hard-to-reach populations

  • Learn what does and doesn’t work

  • Develop a resource map with information about the strengths of the community around a particular livability issue

  • Hear the stories behind data collected in a survey

  • Introduce the broad goals for the project and get community feedback for action steps to meet those goals

Want to learn more? There’s a handbook for that! Our resources section has great tools for helping you conduct your own community listening session, including this handy guide from AARP.

Chrissy Meyer