Community Fellows - New Orleans City Park (original) (raw)
City Park Plan Ambassadors
The Community Fellows model has proven to be a successful outreach and engagement tool to assist with the planning objectives in improving communication methods amongst community members.
A Community Fellow is a community member who assists the engagement team in continuous outreach throughout the City Park Planning process. As Community Fellows, they provide essential tasks to involve their neighbors, coworkers, and friends on the project. Community Fellows also assist with facilitation at community engagement meetings and pop-up events. Community Fellows act as guides through community networks, taking the lead on ensuring everyone has a voice at the table.
The Community Fellows program helps the City Park Plan to:
- Ensure diversity and inclusivity in the decision-making process
- Promote fair and equitable outreach and engagement
- Develop a system of timely and relevant communication with community members, community-based organizations, and other key stakeholders
- Provide the New Orleans community with consistent and accessible information related to the feedback they provide to the City Park Plan team
- Offer transparency in the public decision-making processes
- Build civic trust and capacity around proposed projects or programs
This approach also has a short-term and a potential long-term economic impact. Throughout the process, Community Fellows earn some supplemental income and participate in robust training while gaining facilitation, outreach, and information-gathering skills that can go beyond this project.
- Number of Community Fellows: 10 members minimum from a variety of New Orleans metropolitan neighborhoods
- Recruitment: Community Fellows will play a key role in the project’s on-the-ground recruitment strategy. They will be asked to reflect on their personal networks of friends, family members, coworkers, and others to invite a broad representation of community voices to participate in the community meetings. In addition to personal networks, however, Community Fellows will be asked to broaden their networks and further their reach when welcoming community members to participate in the process.
- Outreach: Invite stakeholders and community members to participate in the community engagement meetings
- Planning: Assist the City Park Plan team with the facilitation of community engagement meetings and pop-up events
- Communication: Support the City Park Plan team in communicating with the public and ongoing recruitment efforts. All project-related communications, including social-media posts, must be approved in accordance with the City Park Conservancy communication regulations.
- Documentation: Assist the City Park Plan team with documenting community feedback during the engagement process
Community Fellows Tasks
- Task 1: Recruitment + Training Process
- Virtual Community Fellows onboarding and training kick off
- In-person Community Fellows training
- Task 2: Facilitation at Community Engagement Meetings
- Four community engagement meetings
- In-person Community Fellows training prior to public meetings
- Coordination meetings with the City Park Plan team post-public meetings to provide feedback
- Task 3: Facilitation at Pop-Up Events
- Attend an estimated 20 pop-up engagement events throughout the eight-month City Park Plan engagement and planning phase
- Community Fellows training
- Location and format to be finalized after recruitment
- Pop-up tabling at local community events and spaces
- Location(s): Local community events
- Time: Varies, dependent on events
- Facilitation: (City Park Plan team members and Community Fellows)
- 1-2 people per event
- Typical Format:
* Set up a table at an existing event
* Informational and Graphic Boards
* Co-design table sheet(s) (reusable)
* Pathway graphic handout and flyer invitations to public meetings
Ideas Youth Committee
Voices of our youth community (15-25 age group) critical to informing the Park’s planning process
Community Input
CPC wants to hear your vision for the future of City Park. Public engagement is a key component to the planning process and you can stay up to date on input opportunities here.
Frequently Asked Questions
We want you to be informed. Stay engaged with the process, and explore the most-commonly asked questions, here.
Plan Overview
The City Park Plan will foster an innovative and thoughtful long-term proposal for City Park grounded in serving the greater good, addressing community needs, preserving historical and cultural context, enhancing environmental resiliency, and fostering a welcoming sense of place.