Consider the points below to make sure your community outreach program stays relevant… 1-Instead of waiting for new information to come to you through feedback surveys, develop a diverse team of collaborators that will proactively look for and stay on top of trends as they occur. 2-Incorporate a follow-up approach that allows you to learn about and address suggestions, ideas and concerns with community members in real time, during or immediately after outreach efforts.

Community outreach requires constant tending for even subtle growth, much like a bonsai tree. At USCIS, our dedicated Community Relations Officers were deployed full-time to information exchange with stakeholders, holding frequent dialogue to share mutually beneficial communications. From our side [the agency], it was important to have an audience that could act as amplifiers for spreading word of policy changes and awareness of scams for applicants to avoid; from their side [the community], it was validating to be able to provide feedback on what their members were seeing when engaging our services so we could consider whether processes or messaging needed finesse.