Community advisory committee do’s and don’ts

Let’s talk about creating a community advisory committee or group for your newsroom.

A community advisory committee can help a newsroom in various ways, from informing a newsroom on specific topics to helping guide news coverage. Doing so can help supercharge efforts at both engaging communities and building trust. There are, however, right ways and wrong ways to build such a group. Let me tell you about one of my community advisory committees that did not go very well.

For a project in a small, rapidly diversifying town, I put together a community advisory committee to focus on issues impacting largely neglected communities within the region. I chose the group, largely selecting people who had attended listening sessions and people I knew. That latter part was the first mistake.

Hoping to be inclusive, I made sure the group had lots of diversity, including individuals from the community’s growing immigrant population from Central America and Mexico. I didn’t, however, have anyone to provide translation because they all spoke English, which I thought was good enough.

I also built the agenda for each meeting myself, with assistance from researchers on the project — but not local residents. I made sure people had a chance to talk about their own concerns, but as someone who was conducting research, I wanted to make sure I got responses that would inform my work.

If you are reading this, and thinking I had set myself up for a disaster, you are correct. It was bad.

Most of the conversations were dominated by the people I personally knew. Those whose first language was not English often struggled to listen to the conversation and rarely participated. Others were frustrated that we didn’t have enough time to go over issues in the community and were focused on my specific project. After all, it was a community committee.

After a few months, a lot of antacids, and a few defections, the project was disbanded. I did little to actually help the community and left a lot of people frustrated. But at least I can now use this experience to tell you how not to build a community advisory committee.

1. Do not build a committee based on information extraction

One of the many reasons the effort above failed was that it lacked a clear purpose beyond my research about the community. I was yet another person showing up to speak with them only because I wanted something that would benefit me. News organizations often make a similar mistake. Yes, these committees help journalists find stories in communities they have historically neglected. But if the sole purpose of the committee is to have residents give you tips, residents may see that as an effort to extract information, as opposed to exchange it.  That may not go over very well. Your committee members should have ownership over the process and their time; they are together to share tips and resources as well as to share concerns they may have, either about your coverage or their community in general.

Always remember this: When you give local community members a space to express concerns, even if it doesn’t benefit you in the short term, it helps generate trust between your outlet and the community. Instead of seeing you as a force of extraction, the community will see your news organization as a source of connection, helping facilitate conversations about their concerns and issues.

2. Do set clear expectations of committee members

If you are going to convene people, make sure they understand why they are coming together and what the expectations are for their participation. When you convene people and ask them to talk without any real preparation or focus, the conversation will be dominated by the most vocal members of the committee. This will lead to frustration and potentially defections from your committee.

An agenda is only a start. Create a contract or memorandum of understanding with each member that clearly outlines the goals of the committee. The contract should also outline a payment amount for their time, schedule of payment and how it will be transmitted. Before you meet officially as a committee, you should have another session or materials that clearly lay out what the expectations will be for both committee members and participants from newsrooms.

You should also ask each member to prepare something to discuss for each meeting. With our Pittsburgh committee, we asked each member to provide an assessment of recent coverage of their communities, as well as names of people, organizations or initiatives they feel aren’t getting enough coverage. Each month, we’ll also brainstorm ideas for a larger issue that can be discussed between committee members and the newsroom. This intentional planning should allow for full participation of all members and avoid domination by a few.

3. Do create a committee with a wide range of voices

Too often, when we seek sources or experts from specific communities, we turn to the same voices over and over. This is problematic because, in many cases, people who know the most about what is happening within a community do not have high-profile positions.

When I helped create an advisory group for the Germantown Info Hub — a community journalism project I co-founded with Andrea Wenzel — I realized that the owners of the local T-shirt shop had the best understanding of what was happening within the neighborhood. It makes sense. Especially within African American communities, people make T-shirts for all sorts of occasions: family reunions, parties and even funerals. The owners interacted with people from all parts of the neighborhood. So when it came time to provide details on current events, they had an even stronger sense of what was happening than some heads of organizations. 

To build a diverse committee, be clear on who can and cannot serve at any given time. We recommend following the guidelines of The Oaklandside. For its committee, which serves the city of Oakland, the nonprofit news site:

• Required committee members from certain parts of the community
• Set goals for recruiting people of different ages, races and who have lived in the community different lengths of time, and.
• Rotated membership after a service period to ensure diversity and avoid burnout

You can read more about Oaklandside’s efforts here.

For our cohort in Pittsburgh, we followed this example and added a best practice of our own,  limiting the number of representatives. Our nine-person committee represents seven different neighborhoods, and we specifically sought to have diversity among ages and experiences. Our members will rotate off the committee every six months.

Both of these efforts are geographic in nature, but you could also devise a similar plan for an affinity board, such as one focused on teachers or business owners. Just make sure that you have clear guidelines that direct your decisions.

4. Don’t be solely responsible for finding members; seek community help

True community engagement work involves the community. It is transformational — not transactional. This is why I’ve stated this best practice in the previous two posts, on listening and asset mapping, and is why I’ll continue reiterating it.

If you are struggling to find people, seek help from the community whether through an organization, business or individual liaison. In Pittsburgh, our liaison, Amber Thompson, was instrumental in helping us find people in neighborhoods that have been largely neglected by local media. Additionally, we turned to the asset maps created by our newsroom participants for help. For example, our committee includes the owner of a bar that was listed as an asset on multiple maps.

5. Do create more than one committee if you want more focus on certain communities

This may be the biggest lesson from the example I shared earlier: In this community, which suffered from heavy social segregation, it was naive to think that a single committee could adequately give voice to the various constituents within it. This was especially the case with adding representatives from the community’s immigrant population. While time-consuming and requiring more organization, developing multiple community advisory committees, especially if you are attempting more hyperlocal outreach, is the best option. Such committees also make sense if you are dealing with a population where translation services may be required.

If you are thinking of taking this route, a community liaison may be instrumental in helping your news outlet build out advisory committees. If resources are an issue, rotating committees to target specific parts of the community would make sense. In Pittsburgh, we are rotating between different parts of the city with each new service period, in part so we can give a greater voice to certain communities that have been notably neglected by local media.

With great care and thought, an advisory committee can help your news organization find better stories, help you engage your community, build trust, and help serve as a part of your daily infrastructure that holds your organization accountable to the communities you serve.