What is a community engagement plan?

A community engagement plan is a strategic plan that guides leaders and community members with a common interest to work together towards a common goal. A good community engagement plan should always start with the desired results for the community and its members and then identify which activities and touchpoints will achieve those results. It should also have a timeline in which these goals will be achieved.

If you’re planning community engagement for an online community, it’s really important to start with the goal first. It’s easy to fill your schedule with posting and content, but is it actually serving your members? A community engagement plan helps you move beyond the content treadmill and focus on what’s actually going to move the needle to help your members achieve the transformation they want.

Community engagement plan examples

• A municipality wants to build a new park but needs input from the community. They set a series of in-person and online meetings to hear from community members with the goal of incorporating their ideas into the design.


• A college wants to revitalize its programming to better prepare young people for the jobs of tomorrow. It creates an extensive survey for 100 local employers to find out about their needs and how current students are faring, with the goal of adapting their programming for the next year.

How to create your own community engagement plan

If you’re creating an online community and getting ready to take your group through an important transformation, we can help. At Mighty Networks, we have our own method of creating community engagement plans that we call Community Design™. It’s our signature community engagement process which includes planning the “year in the life” of your community to identify your goals, and then planning your monthly and weekly activities to support those goals. We even run a Community Design™ Accelerator to help you master it.

Related Article: 11 of the Best Community Engagement Strategies