Printable Version Email to a Friend This Article Brought to You By:

Building Public Relationships: The Cornerstone of Our Approach

Many people have questions about the time and effort it takes to conduct one-to-one conversations as an approach to building a citizens' group. Wouldn't it be easier to just put a notice in the paper and see who shows up for the meeting? Wouldn't it be more efficient to just do an opinion poll or needs assessment to find out what issues people care about? Wouldn't it make more sense to just decide what we want to work on and then recruit people to work on it with us? The answers to these questions are both "yes" and "no" and depend on what it is you are trying to do.

If you are working on an immediate, "hot-button" issue in the community, like trying to stop the siting of a toxic landfill, you are likely to get a pretty big turnout at a meeting you announce in the paper, for example. But you are not likely to get from that meeting a broad base of people who are willing to work long-term on community or public issues in general. You are not likely to attract people who are in favor of the landfill, and therefore not likely to seriously consider the merits of their arguments or understand how they are interpreting information about the landfill, or even what information and point of view led them to support the landfill in the first place. You are missing an opportunity to work out divisions within the community itself, or at least have a clear assessment that they cannot be worked out, before getting into a polarized fight with local opposition you hadn't planned on.

Cultivating public relationships through general, individual conversations provides many advantages over both the short term and the long term. Most people do not have many public relationships in the civic sense, and most of those are rather shallow. In modern life, our relationships with other people tend to take one of two forms, either intimate or impersonal. Our close friends, and often our families, are the locus of our intimate relationships. In this circle, we usually find ourselves with people very much like ourselves, with similar lifestyles, attitudes, values, and points of view.

By contrast, our impersonal relationships are very fragmented. They are not characterized so much as relationships with people with whom we disagree, but as relationships with people we really don't know much about and who don't know much about us. There is nothing wrong with this. It is not necessary to share the same point of view with your doctor on anything other than how to approach your personal health care. It is not necessary to work through your different points of view on gun control, or even to be aware that you have different points of view on the issue. It is generally not necessary to invite your doctor to your child's high school graduation or celebrate holidays together, either.

While there is nothing wrong with intimate relationships per se or with impersonal relationships per se, modern life has left us with a great empty gulf between the two. Public relationships, those focused on the general needs of civic life, on determining what the common good is and how to achieve it, have withered away as the time demands of work and family, increasing geographic mobility, and increasing diversity in our society make it more and more difficult to sort out complex issues in a public forum. It is easy enough to take a position for or against a toxic waste dump in your community, but much more difficult to find a solution to toxics in general. This requires not just taking a position, but engaging with many people with various points of view long enough to reach a solution.

Building public relationships through individual conversations is one step in building, rebuilding, or cultivating a public arena. These conversations help both individuals in the conversation to develop themselves as public persons. Over time, it helps to build an appreciation for and competency in the public arena.

Some "how to" steps in building public relationships

The purpose of conducting individual conversations generally is to cultivate public relationships, or public connections, among people. They may be done in connection with building a new civic organization, increasing the membership of an existing organization, or identifying the major challenges and themes faced by a community. The conversations may lead to identifying new members or focusing the mission of a new organization, or they may result in defining a specific issue for an existing organization to work on and a plan for including people or perspectives that might otherwise have been overlooked or left out.

Almost always, no matter what the organizational reason for conducting the conversations, they result in increased leadership capacity among the people conducting the conversations, and increased credibility for the organization. They increase the number of public connections one has in the community, they widen and deepen one's perspective on public life in general and specific issues in particular. They require people to listen and think, and sometimes change or refine their own points of view in the process. Usually, the process is also enjoyable, although not in the same way that having lunch with a close friend is enjoyable, and not in the same way as getting in and out of the doctor's office without a long wait and with a clean bill of health is satisfying, if not enjoyable. Cultivating public relationships is a doorway to the arena of public life, of expanding beyond self-interest and special-interest groups to engage more and more effectively in addressing the major challenges of civic life.

It is the role of the leadership group conducting the conversations to decide how the conversations fit in with the purposes of the group. For example, as a tool in forming a new citizens' group, the conversations should fit into a general timeline for establishing the group:

The first four to twelve months

Each person in the leadership group conducts at least one conversation a week and meets with the leadership group once a month to compare notes on what the group is hearing in the conversations.

The next two to three months

People who were listened to and were interested in holding a house meeting are contacted to attend a planning meeting and set up house meetings to hear about the results of the conversation process and get commitments from people to join the new group. House meetings are scheduled and take place. The date for the first organizational meeting is announced at the house meetings.

The next month

Founding meeting takes place and first issue campaign begins.

Preparing to conduct the conversations

In preparing to conduct one-to-one conversations, many people have reservations, and even fears about what they will be doing. Aside from some people's discomfort with the idea of talking to strangers or people they hardly know, there is often some confusion about what the "point" is. "What am I expected to produce?" is a common question.

The most basic "point" is simply to begin or continue to cultivate a public relationship with the person you talk to. For people who are very product-oriented, this can seem like a rather abstract "point." Therefore, it usually helps for a group of people to conduct the conversations over a short period of time and hold a practice session or workshop to go over why and how to do them. Actually having a one-to-one conversation is often the only way to grasp what the point is, and doing the first one during a practice session with other people who will also be conducting conversations is a good place to start.

In a practice session, ask people what they would be concerned about if someone contacted them and asked for an hour of their time to get ac quainted and talk about the challenges they see in the local community. The first concern that usually comes up, particularly in small towns and rural areas, is that of confidentiality:

"If I talk to you, what are you going to do with the information you get from me?"

"If I say the biggest problem in town is corruption on the city council, are you going to tell the city council members I said that?"

In larger cities, a common issue is credibility and security:

"Who gave you my phone number and why?"

Other common concerns are:

"Are you going to ask me for money?"

"I'm very busy. Are you going to ask me to work on a committee or come to a meeting or join an organization?"

"If this is a public opinion poll, why can't you just ask me your questions right now over the phone?"

Imagining what questions or reservations you would have if someone asked to have a conversation with you helps you think through the answers in advance and appreciate that the person you are calling might be just as nervous about being called as you are about calling them. In the context of a practice session, the group as a whole can think through the answers to questions like these and even provide an opportunity to practice answering them.

Setting up the conversations

The leadership group needs to decide together how to set up and conduct the conversations. To start with, the leadership group needs to be diverse, reflecting as much as possible the diversity of the community in which the conversations will be conducted. Try to build a leadership group that reflects the diversity of age, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, newcomers and long-term residents, political points of view, family make-up, religious belief, occupation in the community. In this way, the leadership group is most likely to have contacts with the various sub-groups in the community, as well as to understand practical concerns these sub-groups might have. (Working people with young children often have little time for meetings and setting up appointments for conversations, for example, so it is often necessary to be creative about setting up times to meet with them).

There are many ways to set up the conversations, and the leadership group should decide what will work best in the local situation. In general, the group will want to talk to as broad a cross-section of people as possible if the purpose of the conversations is to establish a new citizens organization. One way to do this is to develop a list of all the types of people in the community the group wants to talk to, and then think of particular names of people to talk to in each category. This generally works if the leadership group is fairly diverse itself. If it is not, it will become obvious, as the group tries to think of names of people to talk to in each category, which sub-groups of people the leadership group has little contact with. If, for example, people cannot think of any elderly people to talk to, the group can take a step back and ask who might be able to help with suggestions of elderly people to contact. Asking help from local pastors, people who run Meals on Wheels or senior recreation programs, etc., could help fill in the blanks. You might want to ask such a person to join the leadership group, or simply help you with contacts so that you can find an few older people who would like to join the leadership group and conduct conversations themselves.

The group may also want to talk to elected officials, business leaders, and the heads of various agencies in order to get acquainted and get an overall sense of how people in positions of power in the community see themselves and the challenges in the community. The occasion of forming a new citizens group can be the best time of all to develop contacts with people in positional power. It is an opportunity to get acquainted with how they think and develop an understanding of the local power structure and how it works. While these conversations can be scheduled at the same time as conversations with citizens in general, it makes sense to have a leadership group meeting scheduled to discuss them separately so that the group can begin to develop an analysis together of the power structure in the community.

After putting together a general list of people to talk to, the next step is to decide how to contact them. Again, the best way to do this varies from place to place and person to person, and the leadership group may need to experiment a bit to find what works best. In general, contacting people by phone, letter, or in person are the usual methods of contact. If the leadership group and/or citizens organization is new in the area, the leadership group might consider getting a short article in the local newspaper that tells a bit about the group and why it intends to conduct the face-to-face conversations in the community. If people in the leadership group are members of organizations and churches, they might ask to have an announcement made at meetings or notices put in the newsletters of those groups. This does not mean that the people the group contacts to set up conversations will necessarily have seen any of these notices, although they might, but it is sometimes helpful to tell people that you did have an article in the paper or a notice in the church bulletin. It adds a little credibility to the group, especially when contacting people you do not already know.

At a practice session, it helps to role-play what contacting people to set up an appointment will be like. Members of the group can use this opportunity to practice handling difficulties that may come up. For example, if you plan to contact someone you already know fairly well, you may be concerned that they will not see any point in setting up a specific time to talk to you:

"I see you twice a week at softball games. Can't we just talk about this at batting practice?"

"It would be better if I could meet you an hour before or after the game, so that we really have a chance to talk."

"I can't. I work until just before the games start and I have to race home afterwards to watch the kids so my wife can go to work."

"What time do the kids go to bed?"

"About eight-thirty."

"What if I stopped by your house at quarter to nine and we just talked until nine-thirty or so?"

People in the leadership group should practice making appointments so that they feel confident and also understand that sometimes it just isn't possible to set up an appointment. Sometimes people just say no. Sometimes people just can't find a mutually convenient time. Sometimes people are critical of the whole idea:

"The whole world is falling apart. You're not going to do any good going around talking to people or trying to set up another group. It's a waste of time."

"Sorry you feel that way. If you change your mind, let me know."

It is important to move on to the next person on your list if someone refuses or just can't find a time to talk to you. The point is to talk to as many people as you reasonably can, not to go to great lengths trying to persuade people who are not interested.

Conducting the conversations

As a general guideline, the conversation should not take longer than one hour, and it is important to let people you are talking to know that when you set up a time for the conversation. When you actually meet to have the conversation, it is important to restate the time limit when you begin: "As I said on the phone, this will take an hour or less of our time." Then it is important to stick to what you said. There are many reasons for having a clear time limit. The point is to build a public relationship. The conversations are not rambling chats with friends, and they are not impersonal surveys that extract information from people without revealing anything about the person asking the questions, either. In most places, an hour is ample time to actually engage in a mutual exchange, to listen to rather than quiz people, and to share a bit about your own background and concerns. Having a clear time limit allows you to show that you respect both your own time and the time of the person you are talking to.

Because the amount of time for the conversation is limited, the number of questions that you can ask is limited, too. If the group planning to conduct the conversations is convinced that it is absolutely necessary to get the answers to 15 questions from each person they talk to, the group would do better to send out a questionnaire or do a telephone poll instead. There is time to ask three or four questions at most in a one-to-one conversation, and it is a good idea to decide in advance how much time you want to allot for each question.

One standard question that should be included in any first-time conversation really isn't a question at all, but a mutual exchange of life stories in a public, rather than private sense. This does not mean sitting down and asking a relative stranger to reveal his or her life secrets, nor does it mean disclosing your own. The breakdown in the distinctions between public and private speech, with total strangers revealing the most intimate details of their lives on nationally syndicated talk shows like Phil Donahue and Ophra Winfrey and Geraldo, may make you feel queasy about asking people to tell you about themselves. It is important to understand that the person you are talking to may feel queasy, too, or, on the other hand, may be eager to disclose much more personal information than you would ever want to hear. Plan for either response. Our increasingly therapeutic culture has blurred the lines between what is appropriate to say in a support group and what is appropriate to say in public. Part of the "point" of cultivating public relationships is re-cultivating the distinction.

Practicing various approaches to the standard opening question in a group is helpful. One way to do it is to model what a public disclosure of one's life story is by telling your own story first. "Well, as I said on the phone, I wanted to get to know you a bit and talk to you about challenges you see facing our community. Just to let you know about me a little bit, I was born here but left with my family when I was six because my father got a job in Akron. My grandmother stayed here and I spent most of my summers here, then I went into the Army after high school. Served two years in Vietnam as a medic. Then went to pharmacy school in Norfolk and settled here because I always loved the area and wanted to come back. I work at the drugstore downtown, am married to a woman I met in college who is originally from Chicago, and I have two kids in high school. How about you, are you from here originally?"

Another way is to ask the person about herself or himself first; this is especially appropriate if you already know something about the person. "Well, as I said on the phone, I want to get to know you a little better and ask you some questions about the community. I know I've seen you every Friday at the bank when I deposit my check, and I see your name in the paper all the time about the work you do on the arts council. Did you grow up here?"

In addition to a standard get-acquainted question, you'll probably have time for two or three more, and the group conducting the conversations should discuss what those questions will be. Asking people what the biggest challenges in their own lives are often makes some patterns clear, especially if the group is able to have 30 or 40 conversations a month with a fairly diverse group of people. Asking people what they see as the biggest challenges in the community is another option. Asking them more specific questions like what the strengths and weaknesses of state government are or what they see as the most difficult issues in public education narrows the conversation quite a bit but can be useful if the group is trying to frame an issue campaign.

In the conversations, be sure to let people know what you are planning to do and extend invitations to people who seem to have something to offer to get more involved. For example: "Well, we're in the process of talking to about 120 people over a three-month period. After that, we're writing up a report on what we've heard and we'll be holding small meetings to let people know what the outcome was. That will help us get the word out more. Then we'll convene a general meeting of everyone who's interested in forming a new citizens organization." Exercise judgment in inviting people to future events, though. If someone seems disinterested to you, or hostile, there is no need to encourage them to get involved in the group.

It is important to acknowledge and thank people for discussing their views, even if you don't agree with them. One "point" of the conversations is not to get into a heated argument over things you disagree about. Again, practice helps. "Well, it has been interesting to hear how strongly you feel about a mandatory death penalty for shoplifting. I don't share your point of view, but I had no idea how clear the statistics are you quoted about the death penalty deterring crime. In fact, I saw report the other day that said the opposite is true. Maybe you can send me a copy of your statistics and I'll send you a copy of mine, just so we each have a full picture of the debate."

After each conversation, be sure to jot down some notes about what the person said. Some leadership groups use forms with blank spaces for each question. It is okay to take notes while you are listening, especially if you have trouble remembering things, but listen attentively rather than writing the entire time the person is talking.

It is a good idea to send each person a short note thanking them for their time, and mentioning anything else that is appropriate. ("I will be sure to tell the group that you are interested in holding a house meeting in your neighborhood. We plan to start them in about two months, and you'll get an invitation to the planning session for that.") If note cards seem too formal, a follow-up phone call might do instead, although a call might be better used to actually ask the person to do something.

The role of the leadership group once the conversations have started

The leadership group needs to decide how many conversations they want to have and over what period of time. For most people, one conversation per week is all they can fit into their schedules, but some people may be in a position to do several over a weekend rather than during the week. Set a group goal. For example, if 10 people agree to have one conversation a week over four weeks, that means the group can hear from 40 people in a month. Over three months, that means the group can have conversations with 120 people.

It is a good idea to set a time for the leadership group to get together about once a month to talk about what they are hearing in the conversations and to make decisions about whether they want to invite any of the people with whom they have talked to join the leadership group, be invited to the first public meeting, or be invited to hold a house meeting or help with research or another project the group is working on.

The leadership group meetings are also a time to identify problems and try to solve them as a group. For example, if the group finds after one month of conversations that no low-income women with children have agreed to talk to them, the leadership group needs to address this gap. Why are the low-income women refusing? Are they giving any particular reason? What other options do you have? Perhaps the Head Start teacher in town would be willing to invite parents to small group meetings where a couple volunteers from the leadership group could meet with them and conduct "small group conversations" instead.

In comparing notes on what they are hearing, the leadership group begins to get a picture of the concerns in the community which will aid in planning for the founding meeting for the whole group. For example, if, after the first month of conversations, 30 of the 40 people you have talked to say that public transportation is their major concern for the community, the leadership group should consider planning a workshop on public transportation for the founding meeting.

The leadership group may also decide to schedule other events in response to what it is hearing in the conversations or simply as the result of the conversations the leadership group is having. For example, the leadership group might invite a guest from another leadership group in another community to a meeting to share what they are doing and learning in the other group. Or the leadership group might schedule a workshop on how to hold a press conference since the group wants to hold a press conference to announce the founding meeting and no one in the group has ever organized one before. While the leadership group is free to plan and schedule other events, it is important not to over-schedule. The main point is to conduct the conversations, analyze them as a group, and move toward the establishment of a new citizens group. It often makes sense to wait until the conversations are done before scheduling many events. After the conversations are done, the leadership group will have many more contacts than it did when it started, and many more people to work on planning and carrying out events.

The organizing approach of cultivating relationships leads to creativity and a continuous infusion of energy for an organization. It must be very deliberate and viewed as a long-term process. When combined with a sound analysis of the political and economic situation in a community, strategic thinking, and intentional personal growth and learning by the individuals involved, this approach leads to very informed and powerful actions.