California Climate Investments Resource Portal

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

 


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.

 

Plan for and Conduct Outreach and Engagement

Explore promising practices and lessons learned for conducting outreach and engagement in climate programs and projects.

 


Investments in Action: Community Engagement Project Profiles