Section 4. Using Community Sectors to Reach Targets and Agents of Change

An outreach worker, hired to help establish an English language learning program in a community with a large Portuguese-speaking population, was having difficulty connecting with potential participants. Partially because of language differences and partially because he was new to the community, his early outreach efforts had limited success. He knew he needed help from people who already had trusted relationships within the community.

The outreach worker decided to contact leaders from two important community institutions: a local soccer club and a Catholic church. The director of the soccer club and the priest both recognized a need for English language learning opportunities and agreed to help organize an informational meeting.

The priest shared information about the program with members of the congregation and invited people to attend the meeting. The director of the soccer club personally invited community members who might be interested and introduced the outreach worker at the club, where he was able to talk informally with potential participants and learn more about their interests and needs.

By the time of the meeting, word had spread through the community, and the hall was full. More than 40 people signed up for classes, and many said they would share information with friends and family. When classes began several weeks later, they were well attended from the start.

This story is an example of working through community sectors – in this case, faith and cultural/recreational networks – to connect with people through trusted relationships. We'll briefly examine who should be involved in community change and then explore how community sectors can help you reach, engage, and collaborate with people throughout the community.

What do we mean by community sectors?

“Community sectors” can mean a number of different things. In some cases, it describes broad categories – the public and private sectors, for example, referring respectively to government-related organizations and those outside government. Sometimes, the term “community sector” refers to community-based organizations, institutions, and initiatives, as distinguished from those operated by state or national governments, large corporations, or international organizations.

In this section, when we refer to “community sectors,” we’re pointing to the various groups, institutions, networks, and areas of community life that people may be connected to through common social, political, economic, cultural, professional, or religious interests. In some cases, membership in a sector may be obvious or intentional (business owners as part of the “business sector,” for example). In others, people may not think of themselves in those terms (parents may not think of themselves as part of the “education sector”). Many individuals may belong to, or have contact with, several sectors.

So what are these sectors? We’d be hard pressed to name all the sectors that exist in every community, but there are numerous categories that are common across many communities:

• Health. This includes medical and mental health professionals (physicians, nurses, psychologists, therapists, physical therapists, etc.), pharmacists and pharmacies, hospitals and other inpatient facilities, clinics, complementary health practitioners, community health workers, and public health agencies and systems.
• Education. Public and private K-12 schools, early childhood programs, colleges and universities, school boards, school administrators, teachers, other educational staff, parents and caregivers, students, state boards of education, adult education programs, and English language learning programs.
• Law and justice. Local and state law enforcement agencies, courts, judges, probation and parole officers, prosecutors, public defenders, legal aid organizations, restorative justice programs, and other justice-system partners.
• Government. Regional, provincial, state, local, and tribal governments, agencies, departments, and officials, both elected and appointed.
• Business. This sector can range from self-employed workers and locally owned small businesses to large employers and multinational corporations with a local presence.
• Youth. Young people themselves and the organizations, programs, schools, clubs, mentors, and other adults who work directly with them. There may be considerable overlap with education, families, human services, culture, and sports and recreation.
• Families and caregivers. Whether families and caregivers are viewed as a separate community sector may depend on the issue. They may be particularly important in efforts involving children, young people, older adults, people with disabilities, or others who receive family or caregiving support.
• Media and communications. This may include newspapers, magazines, radio, television, online news organizations, podcasts, social media platforms, community newsletters, content creators, and other communication channels.
• Human services. This sector generally includes nonprofit, public, and volunteer organizations that provide services such as workforce development, food assistance, housing support, older adult services, adult education, disability services, immigrant and refugee support, advocacy, and other community resources.
• Faith communities. Places of worship, faith leaders, members, and religious or spiritually based organizations representing the traditions present in the community.
• Service and membership organizations. Local, national, and international service organizations, professional associations, fraternities and sororities, veterans’ organizations, social clubs, and other membership-based groups.
• Community advocacy and volunteer groups. These might focus on public policy, support for local institutions, economic development, neighborhood improvement, environmental issues, community events, or other priorities identified by community members.
• Arts and culture. This sector includes musicians, dancers, writers, actors, designers, visual artists, cultural organizations, theaters, museums, galleries, arts educators, production staff, and community members who participate in or support the arts.
• Housing and development. This sector may include public and nonprofit housing organizations, tenant organizations, housing advocates, property owners and managers, developers, planners, affordable housing providers, and others involved in residential and commercial development.
• Sports and recreation. This sector might include sports clubs, recreation departments, amateur and professional athletic organizations, public and private recreation facilities, gyms, coaches, personal trainers, recreation leaders, camp staff, athletes, spectators, and supporters.
• Environment and natural resources. This sector may include environmental organizations, conservation groups, land trusts, farmers, hunters and anglers, outdoor recreation groups, scientists, environmental justice organizations, Indigenous communities, natural-resource professionals, and businesses whose work depends on healthy ecosystems.

A conservation land trust is an organization that protects land for conservation, recreation, agriculture, habitat, or other community purposes. It may purchase land directly or work with landowners to establish conservation agreements that limit future development while allowing the land to remain privately owned.

• Agriculture and food systems. This sector can include small and large farms, ranchers, agricultural workers, cooperatives, food processors, distributors, farmers markets, community gardens, food businesses, agricultural organizations, and consumers.

There can be, as we’ve discussed, a large amount of overlap among sectors. Furthermore, the list above is far from complete: a given community may have additional sectors because of its particular history, economy, geography, or culture. A community whose economy is largely agricultural, for instance, may have distinct dairy, grain, fruit-growing, or livestock networks. A culturally and linguistically diverse community may also have organizations and networks connected to particular racial, ethnic, cultural, immigrant, refugee, or language communities.

Sectors exist because of common interests, relationships, experiences, identities, or responsibilities shared by their members. As a result, they can be useful for building relationships and connecting with people who may want to participate in or contribute to a community effort.

Who are the people and partners involved in community change?

People and communities most directly affected

People and communities most directly affected include those who experience an issue, are affected by related policies or conditions, or stand to benefit from an effort. They may also be important leaders, decision-makers, advocates, and partners in creating solutions.

In some cases, an effort may focus partly on individual behaviors – such as supporting people who want to stop smoking or helping people manage chronic health conditions. In other cases, the most important changes may involve organizations, policies, services, systems, or environmental conditions rather than individual behavior.

Examples of people or groups who may be directly affected include:

• People managing health conditions who may benefit from supportive services, accessible health care, healthy environments, or changes they choose to make in their daily routines.
• People who use products associated with health risks, such as tobacco or alcohol, and communities affected by how those products are marketed or sold.
• People with substance use disorders or people seeking recovery support.
• Young people affected by or involved in community violence.
• People seeking employment or experiencing barriers to employment.
• People seeking literacy, digital skills, workforce skills, or instruction in a community’s primary language.
• People who are incarcerated or returning to the community after incarceration.
• People experiencing homelessness or housing instability.
• Farmers and agricultural communities seeking environmentally and economically sustainable practices.
• Individuals, businesses, or industries whose practices contribute to pollution and who can help reduce environmental harm.
• Developers and housing partners who can contribute to affordable, accessible, and environmentally responsible development.

Developers may also be important partners when an effort seeks to change policies, incentives, regulations, or development practices to encourage community-responsive practices.

• Legislators and other policymakers, such as school boards, boards of health, and regulatory agencies, whose decisions can influence discrimination, food access, neighborhood investment, workplace safety, worker protections, education, transportation, housing, health, and other community conditions.
• Media and communications organizations, which can help explain issues, share community perspectives, and increase public awareness.

Other people and communities may benefit from changes without necessarily needing to change their own behavior. Examples include:

• People and families seeking affordable, stable housing
• Students attending schools with limited resources or inadequate facilities
• Individuals or communities affected by social, economic, or political discrimination
• People with disabilities
• Individuals or communities without reliable access to clean drinking water or sanitation
• Communities with limited access to health care
• People experiencing food insecurity or malnutrition
• People and communities exposed to environmental hazards or pollution
• Workers exposed to hazardous substances or unsafe workplace conditions

People most directly affected by an issue should not be viewed only as beneficiaries of an intervention. They may also have essential knowledge, lived experience, leadership, and ideas about solutions. Community efforts are often stronger when people most affected have meaningful opportunities to identify priorities, shape strategies, advocate for change, and participate in implementation and evaluation.

Partners in change

Partners in change are people, organizations, institutions, and networks that can help create positive change. They may contribute lived experience, relationships, decision-making authority, expertise, resources, advocacy, services, or community leadership.

In many cases, people most directly affected by an issue and partners in change are the same people. For example, residents affected by housing affordability may also be advocates, organizers, advisory-board members, or leaders working to change housing policy.

Partners in change may also include public officials, media organizations, families, educators, health professionals, businesses, community organizations, and others whose participation can strengthen an effort.

Some common partners in change include:

• Legislators and other public officials
• Media and communications organizations
• Health care professionals, community health workers, and health administrators
• Teachers, educators, and school counselors
• Parents, caregivers, and other family members
• Peers
• People whose lived experience provides valuable knowledge and credibility, such as people with experience in violence-prevention efforts, recovery from substance use disorders, homelessness, disability advocacy, or other community issues
• Business owners, employers, and organizational leaders
• Community leaders – including people with formal leadership roles and those who are trusted because of their experience, relationships, fairness, knowledge, or service to the community

Sometimes an entire sector may be important to involve. The health sector, for example, can be an important partner when efforts seek to improve health systems, public health policy, health equity, or other community conditions.

Why use community sectors to reach and engage people and partners?

Community sectors can help you connect with people through organizations, relationships, and networks they already know and trust. They can also help broaden participation and bring additional knowledge and resources into an effort. Some reasons for working through community sectors include:

• To connect with people who may face barriers to participation. Some people may have limited contact with formal organizations because of language, transportation, accessibility, past experiences, work schedules, immigration concerns, geographic isolation, or other barriers. Trusted community organizations, cultural groups, faith communities, neighborhood networks, and other partners may help create more accessible and comfortable ways to participate.
• To ensure representation from across the community. It is important to include people who will implement, experience, or be affected by an effort. Working through different community sectors can help bring a broader range of perspectives into planning, implementation, and evaluation.
• To build trust. Community sectors can connect your effort with trusted people and organizations. These relationships can provide a foundation for long-term collaboration and can also strengthen trust among sectors that may not have worked together before.
• To draw on knowledge from different parts of the community. People in different sectors may bring knowledge of community history, previous efforts, relationships, strengths, priorities, barriers, and potential areas of conflict. This knowledge can strengthen planning and implementation.
• To bring sectors together. Different sectors may have limited opportunities to communicate or collaborate. Bringing them into the same effort can help build relationships and lay the groundwork for future collaboration.
• To raise awareness of the issue throughout the community. Community sectors often have established ways of communicating with members and partners. These networks can help share accurate information and community perspectives.
• To build broad community support. When people and organizations from different sectors participate meaningfully in an effort, they can share information through their own networks, encourage others to participate, and strengthen community ownership.

How do you use community sectors to reach and engage people and partners?

Working through community sectors is often easier when you already have relationships in the sectors you hope to involve. If you don’t, this may be a good opportunity to begin building them. The following steps can help you identify and engage the people and partners who should be involved.

Determine whom you need to reach and engage

This first step is closely connected to your strategy. What changes are you hoping to support, and who should be involved in making them happen? If you’re starting an advocacy campaign, you may want to engage policymakers as well as people directly affected by the issue. If you’re providing a service, you’ll want to connect with potential participants and the people or organizations they trust. If you’re trying to increase public awareness, you may want to involve media and communications partners.

In many cases, you’ll need to engage several different individuals and groups. An advocacy effort might involve legislators as well as community members with lived experience of the issue. Their stories, knowledge, and perspectives can help policymakers and the broader public understand why change matters. In recruiting participants for a service, you might also work with educators, families, community organizations, faith communities, or others who already have trusted relationships with potential participants.

What do you mean by “reach and engage?”

Different efforts have different goals for communication and engagement. Among the most common are:

• Share information. You may simply want people to know about an issue, resource, opportunity, or service.
• Encourage a specific action, such as attending a meeting, completing a survey, contacting a public official, accessing a service, or participating in a community activity.
• Support healthier or safer choices. For example, a tobacco-prevention campaign might provide young people with information about nicotine addiction, industry marketing practices, health effects, and resources for quitting.
• Invite people to an event, such as a vaccination clinic, job fair, community forum, workshop, or advocacy event.
• Connect people with a service or resource, such as workforce development, mental health services, a domestic violence program, housing services, food assistance, adult education, or community arts programming.
• Invite volunteers or community partners to participate in events, programs, outreach, planning, or other activities.
• Build public support for an event, program, initiative, or policy proposal.
• Engage in advocacy or influence policy. This may involve meeting directly with policymakers, sharing community perspectives, building coalitions, using media, or mobilizing public participation.

Reaching and engaging people can therefore involve much more than simply spreading information. It may include relationship building, listening, personal invitations, community conversations, partnerships, and creating meaningful opportunities for participation.

Decide what sectors might need to be involved to reach the desired group(s)

You might have to do some research here. Remember the importance of the soccer club and church to the Portuguese-speaking community in the introduction to this section? What organizations, networks, institutions, or groups are important to the people you hope to engage? Whom do they trust? Where do they get information? Where do they already gather or participate?

One group might be best connected through faith communities, another through schools, neighborhood organizations, cultural organizations, social media networks, or trusted community leaders. Public officials may be reached through professional relationships, community organizations, constituents, advocacy groups, or other networks.

Other sectors that might help are those people interact with regularly – businesses, community organizations, media outlets, schools, health care providers, libraries, recreation programs, and others. If these partners can share your information or help facilitate participation through their regular activities, they may help broaden your reach.

Determine who in a given sector is the best contact, and establish that contact

Using community sectors effectively depends on understanding which people and organizations are trusted and credible within a particular community. The fact that an organization serves a population does not necessarily mean that everyone in that population trusts it. In many cases, individual staff members, community leaders, peer advocates, or other trusted messengers may have especially strong relationships.

This is where existing relationships can be valuable. If your current contact isn’t the best person to connect with the community you hope to engage, they may be able to suggest someone else and provide an introduction. If you don’t already have contacts, take time to begin building relationships.

Making contacts in various community sectors

Personal introductions can be helpful when building new relationships. If you don’t know anyone in a sector who can help you get started, ask colleagues, community members, participants, or partners whether they know someone who would be appropriate to contact.

If a personal introduction isn’t possible, reach out using the communication method that is most appropriate for the person or organization. This might be email, phone, social media, an online contact form, or an in-person conversation. Briefly introduce yourself, explain why you are reaching out, and be clear about what you hope to discuss.

If you have no connection at all, you may need to contact several people before finding the right person. Community directories, organizational websites, social media, local events, and recommendations from other partners can help identify potential contacts.

A good starting point is often someone who knows many of the people or organizations you hope to involve. Depending on the community and issue, that might be a community organizer, cultural organization leader, faith leader, neighborhood association representative, librarian, Chamber of Commerce staff member, health care professional, school staff member, or public official.

There is no single best communication method for every community or sector. Some people prefer email, others phone calls, text messages, social media, scheduled meetings, or in-person conversations. When possible, use the communication methods people themselves prefer and make it easy for them to respond.

Clarify what you’re asking for

Why do you want to connect with people? What are you asking them to do? These are questions most people will want answered when you contact them. Be prepared to briefly explain your organization or effort, what you hope to accomplish, why you believe their perspective or participation matters, and what you are asking from them.

Whatever the answers are, they should be clear, complete, and accurate. Be transparent about the time, responsibilities, decisions, or resources involved. People should be able to make an informed choice about whether and how they want to participate.

Be creative

There are many ways to use community sectors to connect with people. We’ve largely focused on relationship-based approaches through individuals and institutions, but communication can also be built into places and activities people already use. For example, pharmacies might share information about a community blood-pressure program, libraries might promote adult learning opportunities, or arts organizations might share information about a local initiative in their programs and newsletters.

Use media and communication channels people already use

Media and communications cut across nearly every community sector. Depending on whom you are trying to reach, you might use local news outlets, community newsletters, social media, podcasts, streaming platforms, text-message networks, radio, television, community websites, or other channels. The key is to use communication channels that the people you hope to engage actually use and trust.

Another important network is made up of people already involved in your effort as participants, partners, volunteers, advisors, or community leaders. Ask them whether they can help connect with others who may want to participate. People already engaged in an effort can often be effective ambassadors because they can describe their own experiences and explain why participation matters.

These relationships can help your effort grow through existing community networks while also strengthening connections across sectors.

Keep at it

Engaging the first few participants or partners doesn’t mean your work is done. Programs and services may need ongoing outreach to remain accessible and responsive to the community. Advocacy efforts often require long-term relationship building and sustained participation. Continue listening, communicating, inviting new perspectives, and strengthening partnerships throughout the life of the effort.

In Summary

Whether your goal is to share information, provide a service, run a program or initiative, improve environmental or social conditions, or pursue advocacy, you’ll need to connect with people and organizations throughout the community. One way to do that is through community sectors – the groups, institutions, networks, and areas of community life connected by common interests, responsibilities, relationships, identities, or purposes.

The business sector, health sector, education sector, government sector, faith communities, cultural organizations, community-based organizations, and many other sectors can all contribute different relationships, knowledge, perspectives, and resources.

In general, people are more likely to participate when information and invitations come through sources they know and trust. By building relationships across community sectors, listening to community members, and working with trusted partners, you can broaden participation, strengthen collaboration, and create community efforts that are more responsive, inclusive, and sustainable.