Agirre Lehendakaria Center's Community Listening and Activation Process

A systemic approach to work in an open, collaborative manner that is sustained over time. It drives co-design, implementation and evaluation of Open Innovation Platforms for Systems Transformation.

Community Listening Processes generate real time information about the perceptions of communities to ongoing initiatives building mutual understanding and enabling sensemaking and collective reflection. This makes it possible to collectively understand, interrogate and redefine the narrative from diverse stakeholders, designed tailored action in response and improve the chances of success and resilience.

The transition to net zero requires fast and deep changes from all sectors of society. Limited understanding and engagement of critical actors, such as the most affected communities, and their needs can often lead to fragile solutions that are met with pushback or distrust. Community Listening Processes break the traditional division between analysis and action, incorporating permanent listening systems to generate real time information about the perceptions of communities to ongoing initiatives.

This method makes it possible to bring together diverse and even antagonistic stakeholders in a process of deep listening and understanding through which to design and deliver a portfolio of co-crafted initiatives for stretegic impact.

Actors and stakeholders are interviewed, participate in surveys and focus groups. As the different narratives emerge, these are collectively shared and questioned. Through deep listening and ongoing communication, a shared vision is defined and a portfolio of interventions is designed accordingly.

The process requires dedicating sufficient time to planning, implementation, ecosystem mapping and building relationships of trust amongst participants and most importantly of participants in the process.

Actors and stakeholders are involved in Community Listening Processes, Collective interpretation spaces, the Co-creation of a narrative-based portfolio, Experimentation and Developmental Evaluation.