I have participated in more agency planning projects than I can count, mostly transportation-related, but other topics as well.

Every project has a well-paid staff project lead, and sometimes other agency staff. Almost all have a well-paid outreach consultant, and almost all have very-well-paid technical consultants, sometimes several.

And then there is the community, the people with local knowledge that is critical to a successful project that meets the needs of the community. These people are rarely paid. Sometimes there will be a focus group that receives some sort of stipend or something of value, but rarely. Sometimes community groups are contracted to bring community members together, but rarely. Sometimes advocacy organizations with some degree of local knowledge are contracted.

But just plain people, who live in their community, have local knowledge, and lived experience with challenges and opportunities, almost never. These people are expected to attend in-person or online workshops and provide their knowledge, for free. This is wrong.

Sometimes food is provided at workshops and meetings, but not often, and when it is, is provided by community nonprofits, not by the grant or agency. There are restrictions on providing food with government grants (as though providing food is ‘wasteful’ while paying agency staff and consultants is not), so this particular issue is often not solvable by the grant recipients.

Child care can be provided by grants, but rarely is. The agencies expect parents to attend, but don’t welcome their kids. Meeting the needs of the kids is often the point of the grant, but the setup makes is difficult for families to participate.

I was just at a workshop, scheduled 5:30 to 7:00 PM. This is dinner time for many families. No surprise, community attendance was very low, with as many advocates as community members. Why are workshops at dinner time? Why are they not scheduled in the afternoon, when the caregiver parent can attend with their children, or after dinner time when the family can attend with their children?

The concept of community outreach is broken. It is the community members that should be treated well, not the professionals.