Catching Up with Community Engagement
By Tim Viall, Media Relations Manager
July 25, 2025 – Last month, MAPC’s Community Engagement Department welcomed practitioners from across the region for an in-person convening at the agency’s office. The third-floor conference room at 60 Temple Place was transformed into a space for initiating collaborations and unlocking meaningful participation. The Community Engagement Convening offered attendees the opportunity to dive deeper into evaluation methods, language access, and relationship building.
“There's a yearning, a wanting, for folks to come together and to not only learn about themselves, but also to be able to share what they're working on,” said MAPC’s Director of Community Engagement Javier Gutierrez. “The beautiful thing is having somebody from the north shore connecting with somebody from the south shore that they've never met in a purposeful gathering.”
The Community Engagement Convening was born out of the Community Engagement Conversations series, which took place virtually from September 2024 to May 2025. Nearly 200 practitioners participated over the course of the eight conversations and in-person convening. Educators from colleges and universities, community-based organizations, utility companies and private businesses, and planners from a variety of different departments, including public health professionals, were represented. The series highlighted topics like designing accessible engagement, conducting stakeholder analysis, and facilitation techniques.
Photos from the June Community Engagement Convening
“The diversity of practitioners’ fields and positions really highlights not only the importance of what we're trying to do, but also the need to build community, to build spaces for people to actually talk about the issues. It’s important for them to identify what is possible within their work, versus MAPC coming to them and saying here's how you do something,” said Gutierrez.
Fostering relationships, collectively identifying similar challenges across communities, and finding ways to overcome current and future barriers to engagement to make communities better were key priorities for the convening. Relationship building, language access, and evaluation were identified as areas of interest during the last conversation.
At the heart of the convening was a simple yet powerful goal: build relationships that last. “In community engagement, we talk about enhancing networks of people and making connections. We hope that in these conversations, people could come together, connect in those conversations, and then they create their own network and continue talking to each other,” said Gutierrez. “MAPC is happy to be the mediator without needing to try to manage those relationships. We just provide them the path and let those relationships flourish.”
MAPC has previously released a Language Access Guide, which walks readers through the practice of designing public process, services, and communication that are: offered in plain language; include multiple languages; meet people's access needs; and honor and celebrate people's cultures. The Community Engagement team has also examined and written about evaluating equity in community engagement work.
As community engagement continues to evolve, MAPC is committed to cultivating spaces that foster collaboration, reflection, and growth; the convening was just one step in that journey.
The Community Engagement Department supports municipalities in integrating residents' input into policy and planning projects. The team provides consulting services to facilitate meetings, organize and implement engagement activities, and create custom engagement strategies to reach diverse and varied audiences.