In order to have a truly thriving community, you need the residents who live there to be engaged in community-related decisions and activities. Fostering a community environment where resident engagement is encouraged will help with increasing resident satisfaction and build the foundation for a stronger, more motivated community.

If you’ve noticed your community is lacking resident engagement, then read on to learn how you can increase this by focusing on the three C’s: communication, collaboration, and connection. We’ll also be providing tips on how the built-in tools on your website can help you with achieving this goal!

Communication

Ensuring you have clear communication with your residents about what is going on in the community is one of the most important things you can do to help increase resident engagement. This would include letting them know when and where board meetings are being held, upcoming events that are scheduled, or any other change happening in the community.

One of the easiest and quickest ways you can communicate with your residents is by utilizing the blast communications tools on your website. This would include blast emails and text messages. You can use the blast emailing feature to share more in-depth information about something going on in the community, and the text messaging feature to send out short reminders about any upcoming events or meetings.

A couple of other great ways to keep residents informed is to add upcoming events to a “Calendar” page and to post community updates and announcements on a “News Articles” page. You even have the added benefit of displaying the information you post to these pages on your homepage as well. An example of how this would look is provided below:

When deciding whether you should communicate something with your residents, remember that the more informed your residents are about what is happening in the community, the likelier they are to become involved!

Collaboration

Another way you can increase engagement is by consulting and collaborating with residents on community-related matters. This could range anywhere from gaining consensus on when and where an event should be held to asking their opinion on improvements they’d like to see in the community.

Two features you can utilize on your website to help collaborate with residents are the “Surveys” feature and the “Contact Form” page. If you’d like to collect feedback from residents and gather a majority opinion, we highly recommend using the “Surveys” feature to do this. You can also use the “Contact Form” page to allow residents to communicate with board members or to provide the website administrator with recommendations on what they’d like to see included on your website.

An example of what the “Contact Form” looks like is provided below:

Providing different ways for residents to share their voice and be a part of the decision-making process not only will make them feel more integrated into the community but will also lead to decisions that better address resident needs.

Connection

Lastly, you can help increase the resident engagement in your community by creating mediums for residents to interact with each other. This will help with fostering relationships and making connections.

One way you can help residents engage with one another is by creating a community “Forum” page on your website for residents to converse on. Providing a way for residents to connect with one another is a great way to build camaraderie between them and to develop a further sense of community.

Another way to encourage resident engagement is by highlighting community members on your website. Perhaps a resident volunteered for an event or helped the community solve a problem, recognizing those who are active in the community is a great way to encourage others to become involved as well.

You can also help new residents connect and become involved with the community by sending them an “Invite to join” email to create an account on your community website! Once they have a registered and approved account on your website, they’ll have access to participate in interactive page types, like the “Forum” page.

Wrapping up

Implementing the three C’s (communication, collaboration, and connection), and using the suggested built-in tools available on your website, is a step in the right direction to increasing resident engagement in your community.

Engaging your community with clear and effective communication, encouraging collaboration, and providing mediums for them to connect on will help build a thriving and motivated community that your residents can take pride in.