Building Community Support

Imagine being the Department Head of an Emergency Services Department in which the community your department serves, supports the department one hundred percent. Many of you are saying that this would be a dream come true. Some may be saying that this would never occur. Some may be asking how. A few are saying that they have a unique problem in their community. Well, which is it? The choice is yours. You can receive as much support as you foster. It is easy to sit and make excuses why you don’t have the community’s support, but what have you done to get the support you want? Now you are wondering if I have lost my mind. No, it goes back to the old saying your reap what you sew.
First, know that if you try, you can succeed. Second, once your program is really working well, you will be asked by other departments how you did it and to help them. Soon you will be a leader among the departments in your area.

Getting Started
Community relations is a big job, too big for a single person to handle. It will require the efforts of every member of your team to make this a successful venture. Of course it starts with you as the leader. As the leader you must sell this concept to the group of people who deal with the community on a daily basis, the emergency responders. During their work delivering emergency services they must execute the plan. I know you are asking what plan. The plan is what you want to accomplish in gaining community support. One of the more common theories that I heard recently at a conference made perfect sense. As an emergency services department you must make yourself so desirable that it would be political suicide for the governing agency not to give you what you want because the community would be upset. For this concept to work each individual of the department must buy into this concept of community support.

The plan
In the first months you must develop a specific plan of how you want to gain the support of the community. This will include what you want to give them as an agency. More is not always better. Decide what services you want to provide. Start with the essentials and get good at them before trying to tackle the world. During this time period keep track of what it is that you are doing and how you are doing it. This concept follows the business principle of the six-sigma concept, getting quantifiable results on your investment. To break that down to emergency services terms, the services we are delivering are being delivered with excellence and we are getting returns on that. The returns will be in the form of a thank you, letter, donations and other forms of support. It is important that your community knows what you are doing. This can be accomplished by merely utilizing the media in the forms of press releases.
The media for some is perceived as a nightmare to work with. But, they can be utilized in your favor. By keeping them informed or even offering them more opportunities, begins to foster a relationship that may not otherwise have been developed. The more the community sees you I a positive light the more they believe it. By utilizing the media and developing a working relationship you create a win-win environment that each entity is dependant upon.
To further develop the plan, it is important that public contacts made are positive ones. This will require the efforts of the entire department. Offer time to the media to come out and do some filming along with sending press releases from responses or other activities. The media can truly be your friend; it just takes the efforts to develop that friendship.

Expanding the Basic Plan
Once you have gotten the basics down you started with, begin to select and choose additional services that are important to your community. Each community has areas that they feel are important. The best way to find this out is to ask. One of the best ways to create interaction with the community is through surveys. These can be distributed with minimal costs by mailing them post incident. This will give you the perspective of what the community you serve perceived of your services. Secondly place throughout the community surveys that target questions to get the community to tell you what other services they would like. Now not every request is one that can be taken on, but you must plan for the ones that are within the organizations mission.

Making Presentations
Following the surveys, plan for an open house. Every citizen is curious as to what it is that you have. Not to mention the young citizens like the emergency vehicles. This is a time you can get direct feedback and also embark on those new endeavors you what to do. Try them out during the open house. Example of these would be education programs, child safety seat installations, and recruitment. This is your opportunity to sell your organization and its programs. This concept is known as Talking to the Community.
Almost everyone in your community is a potential audience for a presentation. Members of town council, church groups, senior citizen clubs, civic organizations, service groups and just plain citizens are examples. The size of the audience doesn’t matter. Capitalize on any size of audience to deliver your message or service. Some of the best advertising principles evolve around good service and the customers’ word of mouth about the service.
Once you have decided on the types of presentations you want to give, you can let the community know that you are available by utilizing word of mouth, an article in the new paper, television coverage, or direct contact. In talking to the community it is important that you know your audience. You should always keep in mind just who are you speaking to and is the topic relevant to the cause.
Obtaining Resources
During this process it is important to be addressing the important pieces of the puzzle. How much does it cost, where do we get funding and how will it impact the department both manpower wise and publicly. It is important to now involve the governing agencies, i.e. Elected officials of town or city government. Each program comes with a cost whither it is monetary or labor. This is the point you must start to look at funding. It requires resources to accomplish any task. This is when you must be resourceful. Hopefully, by this point, you have gained the support of the community and resources will come much easier.
Conclusion
The gaining of community support can to endless possibilities for services you deliver and the support you receive. As we have stated before with media relations you want a win-win situation. The support of the community you serve along with your dedication to provide quality services precipitates a true win-win relationship.
More information may be obtained on this concept by reviewing the Building Blocks, “Building Community Support for Emergency Services Organizations” or contacting Fire Training Solutions.