What is community consultation?
Community consultation is the process of engaging with people, groups, and organisations to understand local needs, strengths, priorities, experiences, and ideas before and during program delivery. In widening participation work, consultation helps ensure programs are shaped by the communities they are intended to support, rather than being designed externally and applied uniformly across different places.
Effective consultation is built on listening, relationship-building, and genuine consideration of community perspectives. It helps programs become more locally relevant, culturally responsive, and sustainable over time.
What consultation is not
Strong consultation should meaningfully influence planning, delivery, and reflection. It should also recognise that communities are diverse, and that different groups may have different experiences, priorities, and aspirations.
This means those who are engaged in consultation should have a genuine opportunity to change an outcome or idea. If your approach simply gathers information, but doesn't provide those givng the information with the power to make decisions or change outcomes, it isn't consultation.
Consultation is not:
simply informing people about decisions that have already been made, such as getting opinions or feedback on a pre-existing or pre-designed program
collecting feedback without considering or acting on it
a one-off “tick-box” activity completed at the beginning of a project
assuming one person or organisation can speak for an entire community
only hearing from existing partners or the loudest voices
General types of consultation
Formal consultation
Formal consultation involves planned and structured engagement activities. This may include:
workshops or focus groups
surveys or questionnaires
advisory groups or steering committees
facilitated community meetings
interviews or structured conversations
Formal approaches can help gather consistent information across groups and create clear documentation of community input.
Formal consultation relies on developing a specific approach. You can read about different approaches on the next page.
Informal consultation
Informal consultation is equally valuable and often occurs through existing relationships and ongoing conversations. This may include:
conversations with students, parents, or teachers
discussions at community events
meetings with local organisations or employers
reflections from previous programs or partnerships
observations and feedback gathered during delivery
In many regional and remote contexts, informal consultation plays an important role as relationships, trust, and local knowledge are developed over time rather than through one-off activities.
The key consultation stages
There is no single “correct” way to undertake community consultation. Different communities and programs require different approaches. However, effective consultation processes often include the following key stages.
1. Define your consultation goal
Identify what you are hoping to learn or understand through consultation.
Goals may include:
understanding community priorities or needs
identifying suitable delivery approaches
exploring partnerships or existing resources
understanding cultural considerations
identifying desired outcomes or measures of success
2. Identify stakeholders
Stakeholders are the people, groups, and organisations connected to or affected by your program.
This may include:
Elders and First Nations organisations
students, parents, and families
schools and teachers
local businesses and employers
community organisations and service clubs
universities and training providers
local government
Consider whose voices are already present, and who may be missing.
3. Select an approach
Choose how consultation will occur based on your goals and stakeholders. It is recommended that you choose an approach or blend approaches that have existing resources, such as Appreciatiev Inquiry, the ARPNet Dilly Bag, or Asset-Based Community Development.
See the Consultation Approaches page for more information.
4. Select activities
Consider how you will actually run your approach.
This may include:
workshops or meetings
surveys
informal conversations
yarning circles
community events
advisory groups
See the Delivery Support page for more information.
5. Gather and reflect on information
Identify key themes, strengths, opportunities, and concerns emerging from consultation.
Consultation should meaningfully influence planning and delivery.
This may involve:
refining activities or partnerships
adapting delivery approaches
identifying new priorities
embedding culturally responsive practices
6. Continue consultation over time
Consultation should be ongoing, not a one-off activity. Continuing to engage with stakeholders supports stronger relationships, continuous improvement, and more responsive programs over time.
This may look like running further consultation, going back to stakeholders to discuss findings, or inviting stakeholders to participate in delivery or evaluation.
WP Tip
Consultation information does not only support planning. It can also provide useful evidence about participants' experiences, aspirations, confidence, connections and needs at the beginning of a project.
Capturing key themes from consultation can help you understand what changes over time when you design your evaluation plan.