Embed your organisation into your community, take part in local agendas and avoid being seen as a distant, authoritative institution.

The process of organisational change runs alongside and underpins business as usual.

Participatory community engagement is essential to your business model, goals or mission.

Using change agents and champions effectively.

Consider using a change theory or process to underpin your transition.

Ensure your communication mechanisms support everyone internally and externally to have the right information, at the right time, to be participatory.

Make sure you have the buy-in and vocal support from your community stakeholders.

Ensure community stakeholders have skills and technical knowledge to engage, act and challenge.

Ensuring that participatory community engagement is shared as a core value across the organisation.

Share decision-making power with community stakeholders.

Delegating leadership to staff to allow more effective and responsive participatory practice.

Allowing time for discussion among staff so that good participatory practice can develop.

Making participatory community engagement everyone’s job.

Learning to listen to external voices to help the change process.

How do you make participatory community engagement financially viable and sustainable?

The role of governing bodies in participation and how to involve communities in governance.

The importance of buy-in and vocal support from directors, senior managers and governing bodies.

Induction and training into participatory ways of working is available to all staff, volunteers, board members and community partners.

Ensuring leaders have a leadership style that actively encourages participatory community engagement.

A learning organisation has mechanisms for taking risks, properly evaluating and learning from mistakes. They continuously develop. A learning organisation does not use evaluation to cast blame, to tick boxes, impress funders or just for advocacy.

The starting point should be community needs and assets, rather than seeking to fulfil museum needs first.

Be confident community stakeholders. Know what you bring and why you are needed.

Know how to start, maintain and end relationships and partnerships that are equitable and collaborative.

Ensure published policies and strategies clearly commit the organisation to participation.

Staff and community stakeholders regularly reflect on their collaborative practice and make changes.

Involving communities in organisational leadership.

Getting buy-in and understanding from all staff and perceiving resistance differently.

Empowering staff to use their talents, work collaboratively and challenge in a supportive way.

Ensuring staff have the right skills to work collaboratively with communities and each other.

Continue organisational change during staff turnover of a Director or other key roles.

Change structures, mechanisms and ways of working that are a barrier to participatory community engagement initiatives.

Be open and transparent with processes and discussions that usually happen behind the scenes to reduce barriers to collaboration and enhance shared ownership.

Build confidence and trust with community partners, enabling them to challenge thinking, practice and share learning.