Community Engagement Strategy (OI2319)

This metric is intended to capture whether the organization has a strategy to engage with its local stakeholder communities. Community engagement strategies involve intentional approaches to align the development priorities of local communities with the goals of the organization.

Examples of strategy elements, to footnote, may include: providing deliberate resources (e.g., employee time and skills, in-kind giving, leadership) to community organizations or individuals, providing education and skills training, creating opportunities for employee volunteering and fundraising, contracting to local suppliers, lobbying to strengthen local issues, facilitating discussions with local leaders, integrating the company's community engagement activities into organizational functions, creating institutional policies and incentives for community engagement, and measuring the social impact of the organization's community engagement activities.

The strategy may also dictate methods (e.g., memoranda of understanding) for considering, informing, and consulting with existing community groups before implementing organizational activities that affect the community. For example, organizations may assess and take into account existing formal, informal, and historic land-use rights of local communities or Indigenous peoples prior to operations that affect the land.

Historical land titles offer one way to evaluate which communities to engage. LandMark (http://www.landmarkmap.org/) provides data on Indigenous and community land rights. In engaging the community, organizations should use a consent process to ensure that the entire community endorses the project and not just a few elite members.

Biodiversity conservation projects will often require involving traditional landowners or others from the community who rely on the land.

Organizations can refer to the following sources for further guidance on community engagement strategies:

• Community Planning Toolkit (http://www.communityplanningtoolkit.org/sites/default/files/Engagement0815.pdf)
• International Finance Corporation's Strategic Community Investment: A Good Practice Handbook for Companies Doing Business in Emerging Markets (https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/topics_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/sustainability-at-ifc/publications/publications_handbook_communityinvestment__wci__1319576907570)
• The Conference Board's The Civic 50: Best Practices in Corporate Community Engagement (https://conference-board.org/publications/Civic-50-Corporate-Communication-Practices)
• World Bank's Community Engagement Planning Tool (http://wbi.worldbank.org/sske/resource-library/community-engagement-planning-tool)
• World Bank's Participation Sourcebook (http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/1996/02/696745/world-bank-participation-sourcebook)