Outreach and Engagement Resources
Whether you are an administering agency or a potential applicant, planning and conducting public outreach and community engagement is integral in ensuring programs and projects incorporate community needs and feedback into design and that programs project provide direct, meaningful, and assured benefits to community members.
What is Outreach and Engagement?
Outreach is an important component of all California Climate Investments programs. For example, there is a great deal of public interest in learning about funding opportunities. The earlier the information is made publicly available, the easier it is for people to get involved and prepare funding proposals or submit applications.
Community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with a diverse group of interested parties to address issues affecting their well-being. It is a dynamic process rooted in relationship-building that facilitates communication, interaction, feedback, and involvement between a community and their government. It involves sharing information, building relationships and partnerships, and involving collaborators in planning and making decisions with the goal of improving the outcomes of policies and programs. To ensure projects provide direct, meaningful, and assured benefits to a community, California Climate Investments projects should directly engage the community in all phases of development and implementation.
California Climate Investments Outreach and Engagement Tools
California Air Resources Board
View upcoming California Climate Investments funding timelines, public participation opportunities such as workshops, public comment periods, listening sessions, and more.
California Air Resources Board
Current opportunities to participate in identifying areas for improvement of existing materials and ideas for tools and resources to help achieve the objectives and principles of California Climate Investments.
California Air Resources Board
Subscribe to the newsletter and read past newsletters in English and Spanish.
California Air Resources Board
Bingo game to help children learn about California Climate Investments and how California is combating climate change.
California Air Resources Board
A fortune teller game to help children learn about California Climate Investments and how California is combating climate change.
Determine the Level of Participation
Public participation can be any process that directly engages the public in decision-making and gives full consideration to public input in making that decision. Some participation strategies will be better suited for a given program or project type than others.
Explore additional information on the spectrum of public involvement to consider.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
This document illustrates EPA’s spectrum of public involvement, which is characterized by five different “outcomes” that result from public involvement in agency decisions. It parallels the IAP2 Spectrum, but is tailored to the specific needs of a regulatory agency.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
This guide provides tools for public participation and public outreach in environmental decision-making. It will help you identify some of the best practices for planning, skills and behaviors that government agencies can use to design and implement a meaningful public participation program.
California Air Resources Board
Recommendations and lesson learned for incorporating community leadership into many different stages of a program or project.
International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
IAP2's Spectrum of Public Participation was designed to assist with the selection of the level of participation that defines the public's role in any public participation process.
Plan for and Conduct Outreach and Engagement
Explore promising practices and lessons learned for conducting outreach and engagement in climate programs and projects.
California Climate Investments
Excerpts from the Transformative Climate Communities Program Guidelines that establish minimum requirements for a Community Engagement Plan to ensure applicants involve residents from the project area and key stakeholders in all phases of TCC proposal development and implementation.
California Air Resources Board
Recommendations and lesson learned for incorporating community leadership into many different stages of a program or project.
California Department of Public Health
Designed to support effectively implementing the strategies in the Engaging Communities for Health Equity and Environmental Justice: A Guide for Public Agencies.
