Engaging stakeholders and partners early helps develop interest and ownership in the process and assists in building a compelling case for a vision. Cultivating public champions among influential leaders from public, private, and nonprofit spheres also may provide essential support for the vision as it progresses. Outreach in this initial activity area is primarily focused on informative techniques to share background information regarding the project’s purpose and need. Articulating the need and context for a vision sets the stage and direction of future efforts, and stakeholder outreach helps determine potential activities, direction, and scope. Informative techniques may include providing press releases and communications materials, establishing an informational web site or blog, for the project, or even conducting initial community meetings. While a number of feedback techniques may prove useful, key techniques may include opinion surveys, community canvassing efforts, focus groups, and other in-depth early community outreach. Collaboration should be encouraged from the very start of the process and this may be an appropriate time to begin working with community leaders and forming task forces, community working groups, and developing partnerships.

Practitioners may consider these questions when assessing outreach tools:

What feedback is needed from stakeholders to begin framing the problem statement for the vision?

How do we best communicate with stakeholders? (e.g., is our audience web-accessible, or are there significant groups of hard-to-reach stakeholders?)

What does the public already know about the planned visioning effort? (i.e., are there public perception issues or specific messaging that must be managed?)