March/April 2022 Newsletter

From the Executive Manager - Erin Zimmermann

There is something energizing about springtime. There is more sunlight and knowing warmer weather and blossoms are on their way. At least that’s my experience from where I sit. 

It also gives me renewed focus on professional development. There is still so much possibility for this year. Spring is a great time to revisit goals and opportunities, connect with colleagues, register for a new training or conference, or read something new and different. 

I plan to sign up for a few upcoming webinars and re-engage with other association professionals. I am also starting to make travel arrangements for the North American Conference in Banff. I can’t wait to be in person with all of you again! Our board will be gathering virtually for a focused half day retreat in May to continue to advance our goals and priorities as an organization. 

Our IAP2 community is a place to help foster continued learning for all our members. We have lots of exciting opportunities around the corner. April is packed with a variety of online course offerings. Our Midwest Chapter’s spring conference is coming up May 4-6. On April 12th we will be hosting a webinar about how the public can create public policy. And, I am inspired by our six applicants who are in the process of pursuing Professional Certification

We would love to hear what professional development you are pursuing. Drop us a line. erin@iap2usa.org

2022 Core Values Awards - Accepting Nominations


 IAP2 USA wants to recognize your achievements with our Core Values Awards.

Being a Public Participation Practitioner is not for the faint of heart. It requires ingenuity, care, and dedication. 

  • Ingenuity in how to engage a diversity of stakeholders and the public in complex and sometimes high-stakes and high-emotion projects, plans and processes.
  • Care in providing a safe and inclusive space where there is an opportunity to hear from and engage all voices including stakeholders, the public, decision-makers and the internal team.
  • Dedication to your communities, the P2 practice, and the greater good while upholding the IAP2 Core Values and the Code of Ethics.

Each year, IAP2 Affiliates around the world celebrate excellence in the profession through the IAP2 Core Values Awards. The awards go to projects and organizations which best demonstrate IAP2's Core Values and help to raise the bar in the field of public engagement by sharing best practices and inspiring the P2 community to learn from one another. The Core Values Awards encourage new approaches and innovative uses of existing ones.

Share your inspiring projects. Show us you have created positive change, built trust, and engaged your local community in public participation. Core Value Awards applications are due April 29, 2022. 

Apply By April 29

Save the Date: IAP2 USA General Annual Meeting -  May 17

Mark your calendars. IAP2 USA’s annual meeting is scheduled.

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

2:00 - 3:00 EDT

All IAP2 USA members are invited to join us at the General Annual Meeting. This is a great opportunity to celebrate the organization’s 2021 accomplishments and check in on upcoming plans and priorities. 

This year, will offer some fun engagement opportunities for members to connect, share, and learn together.

Free for Members

Register

2022 Skills Symposium Goes Virtual - April 25 - 29


Public Deliberation Techniques  April 25 & 26   12 - 3:30 pm Eastern

Public Deliberation Techniques: Inclusive Methods for Informed Engagement on Polarized Issues

Learn to cultivate informed and thoughtful public discussion in this age of polarized debate. This course introduces engagement methods used for policy issues around the globe: Citizens Assemblies, Deliberative Polling, and the 21st Century Town meeting. In each method, people from different walks of life are convened to learn about an important topic, deliberate on options for action, make proposals to governments and leaders, and generate ideas for change. You will explore, and apply to your own work, key ingredients of these processes, including developing discussion content and questions, as well as outreach strategies to involve large numbers of diverse participants.

This course covers topics such as:

    • Identifying and addressing barriers to P2 participation 
    • Analysis of power and privilege in designing and convening large scale participation 
    • The qualities of debate, dialogue and deliberation
    • Synthesizing large amounts of public comments
    • Supporting informed participation
    • Design considerations for public deliberation More Details
Register

Designing Effective Hybrid Public Engagement Events April 27   12 - 3 pm Eastern

The pandemic has wildly changed the landscape of public engagement, and it’s essential to accept that it will never go back to the way it was. Pre-pandemic, everyone expected the one-evening event and maybe the one-weekend event. But now we’re in a space where the time of day, time zone and date for events almost don’t matter because online events have increased the ability to participate. But people ARE going to want to participate in-person AND they are going to want to participate online. It’s time to get AGILE and create hybrid engagement opportunities!

This half day session participants can expect to:

  • Learn the 8 key elements for effective hybrid event design 
  • Walk away with an event design template to use at for your very next event 
  • Understand the 5 principles to successfully integrate online and in-person events
  • Receive a checklist and template for your future Hybrid Events More Details
Register

Hosting Effective Hybrid Public Engagement Events  April 28   12 - 2 pm Eastern

Dynamic, interactive and engaging hybrid meetings, sessions workshops have never been more important and are likely to become the norm! How you show up, interact with online participants, ability to “read of room” and navigate the unique needs of any hybrid conversation, not only impacts the meeting results but also the experience people have with it.

Join a 2-hour session where we co-create a shared understanding how best to engage your participants, lead dynamic, energized creative conversations all the while leaving people feeling inspired, willing and eager to join your next online meeting! No fancy tools, platforms or gadgets required!

Expect to walk away with:

  • A how-to guide for setting the best tone and environment so your participants and stakeholders feel comfortable and ready to engage in meaningful ways (regardless of how they are joining) 
  • Three key fundamentals to “reading the online & in-person room” (people participate differently, learn to read the visible & invisible cues) 
  • Reflection time for your own facilitation style, approach and how it might need to adapt to suit the hybrid engagement environment More Details
Register

Stakeholder Mapping: Identifying and Analyzing Underrepresented Stakeholders   April 29   11 am - 3:30 pm 

This course introduces a powerful, transparent process to identify and analyze key stakeholders for any engagement project – a critical step in an ethical and equity-centered engagement design. After understanding the theory and purpose, participants use short cases to practice stakeholder mapping. They learn how to identify and analyze the full spectrum of stakeholders, with special emphasis on underrepresented stakeholders who need additional outreach/support to ensure inclusive engagement. For each case, the group learns how to “clean” and finalize the map, and then discusses implementation challenges and how to overcome them.

Learning outcomes:

    • Challenge: Design and implement equity-centered engagement processes for increasingly diverse communities 
    • Critical to success: Robust and comprehensive stakeholder identification and analysis (“stakeholder mapping”)
    • Course combines theory, practice, instructions, templates
    • Participants leave ready to conduct thorough, defensible stakeholder mapping that identifies underrepresented stakeholders, and use the results to plan and successfully implement inclusive engagement 

Participants receive:

  • Detailed stakeholder mapping instructions 
  • Stakeholder mapping templates and examples 
  • Complete course content and notetaking document
Register

More All-New Online Courses

Crisis Communications and Cancel Culture: Essentials for Moving Forward

April 11 & 13   1 - 4 pm Eastern

Register

Design Engaging Virtual Workshops and Events

May 4   12 - 4 pm Eastern

Register

Techniques for High Emotion & Controversy in P2 Workshop

April 19  12 - 3 pm Eastern

Register

Techniques for Brainstorming & Idea Generation Workshop

May 18   1 - 3 pm Eastern

Register

 2022 IAP2 North American Conference - Banff, Alberta September 14 - 16


Together again, at last! After more than two years of “settling” for online events, the 2022 IAP2 North American Conference (Sept. 14 - 16 in Banff) will finally be an in-person, face-to-face get-together!

Being together again gives this year’s Conference theme even more meaning: “Connecting with Purpose” is about connecting with the P2 community; connecting to achieve diverse representation; connecting with Indigenous ways of knowing; connecting through differences; connecting through the screen.  

NOTE: this year’s Conference will be both in-person and Virtual Lite, with some of the presentations live-streamed to those who prefer not to travel at that time. Let the committee know if your session would be suitable for hybrid delivery.

If you have any questions, please contact info@iap2canada.ca

Register Today

April Webinar

April 12 Learning Webinar NAC Encore - From the Bottom Up: How the Public Can Create Public Policy

A reprise of one of the more popular sessions at the 2021 IAP2 North American Conference.

As public policy practitioners, we work with the decision maker to identify and engage stakeholders when stakeholder engagement is necessary to inform the public policy making process.

How can the public proactively identify and engage decision makers?

Can our public participation practices facilitate this form of democratic engagement?

This interactive presentation will share lessons learned when a nonprofit organization paired with two governmental entities worked to influence 52 other elected officials to adopt a joint resolution across a five-county region.

Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of what is successful and challenging about engaging in a bottom-up public participation process, and an outline of a potential framework for practitioners to utilize. Attendees will walk away with a personalized workbook to outline the steps they can utilize to successfully implement a bottom-up approach to public participation.

Register

Webinar Recordings -  Available free to Members On-Demand

All of our past webinars are available to members who are logged into iap2usa.org. Just click here and you will be prompted to login to the Webinar Archives.

March 8 Learning Webinar 2021 IAP2 CORE VALUES AWARD-WINNERS

With the application period for the 2022 IAP2 Core Values Awards just around the corner, here’s a chance to learn how some of last year’s winners did it! How did their projects align with the IAP2 Core Values? How do their organizations include P2 in their planning? What did they learn and what techniques did they employ that you can put to work in your own practice? Come and hear from:

Julie Potter & Simon Pek, University of Victoria, winners of the IAP2 Canada award for Creativity, Contribution and Innovation in the Field for “Students’ Dialogue Democratic Engagement”. Watch their video from the 2021 Core Values Awards celebration here.

Mariana Maguire, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which received Honourable Mention from IAP2 USA for Creativity and Innovation for engaging the public on transit route adjustments during the COVID pandemic.

Emina Dervisevic, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCH), winner of the IAP2 Canada award for Respect for Diversity, Inclusion and Culture, for “VCH Translation Engagement”. Watch their video here.

Are you working on or have you been part of an award-worthy project? Find out more about the IAP2 Core Values Awards here, and watch for the announcement of the next application period.

If our current courses don't meet your needs please fill out this quick survey so we can help you become the P2 practitioner your community needs.

Member Spotlight

If your organization  had any recent P2 successes or thought of creative solutions we want to hear about it! Please contact info@iap2usa.org to be featured on our website or newsletter.


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