---
id: "coronavirus-smarter-crowdsourcing:recommendations/engage-the-public-and-civil-society-organizations"
type: "GovLab policy recommendation"
title: "Engage the Public and Civil Society Organizations"
url: "https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/recommendations/engage-the-public-and-civil-society-organizations"
summary: "Engage the public and civil society organizations to support vulnerable populations by capitalizing on existing knowledge and expertise, leveraging local assets and resources, building trust with intended beneficiaries, and strengthening the capacity of communities."
source: "The GovLab (coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Engage the Public and Civil Society Organizations

Engage the public and civil society organizations to support vulnerable populations by capitalizing on existing knowledge and expertise, leveraging local assets and resources, building trust with intended beneficiaries, and strengthening the capacity of communities.

- Part of: [Smarter Crowdsourcing in the Age of Coronavirus](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/), [all recommendations](https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/recommendations)

## Strategy 1

Work with local community leaders to tailor policy decisions to the needs of the community.

- Timeframe: 3-6 Months (medium)
- Audience: Civil Society, Vulnerable Populations, Organized Civil Society
- Type: Policy/Legislative/Regulatory, Partnerships, Vulnerable Populations
- Strategy page: https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/work-with-local-community-leaders-to-tailor-policy

### Actions governments should take (strategy 1)

1. Form multi-sectoral commissions with diverse representations of experts as well as representatives from the communities themselves to conduct needs assessments and define the specific vulnerable groups needing support.
2. Post information online or write articles describing the process by which policies and programs are developed and how the public and specific vulnerable groups were engaged throughout the engagement.
3. Host a town hall where the public can ask questions to the experts or the government. The government can televise, live stream, or otherwise host this forum on a free and public platform to ensure it has broad reach to many segments of the population.
4. To engage specific vulnerable populations, the government should conduct targeted listening sessions and outreach to identified populations to meet them in locations where they are located and most comfortable.
5. Coordinate citizen-led messaging campaigns, where members of the target audience are the main spokespersons and public faces for that specific information campaign.

### Examples from around the world (strategy 1)

1. [The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)organized a conversation with representatives of refugee-led organizations to discuss their needs and priorities as they relate to COVID-19 and how they can best be supported.](https://www.unhcr.org/2020-unhcr-annual-consultations-with-ngos/opening-conversation-high-commissioner.html)

## Strategy 2

Partner with,fund,and support women and their families,women-owned businesses,and grassroots organizations specifically serving women.

- Timeframe: 3-6 Months (medium)
- Audience: Vulnerable Populations, Organized Civil Society, Nonprofits
- Type: Policy/Legislative/Regulatory, Partnerships, Capacity Building, Vulnerable Populations
- Strategy page: https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/partner-with,fund,and-support-women-and-their-fami

### Actions governments should take (strategy 2)

1. Where possible, provide economic support including cash, unemployment benefits, and expanded child support for vulnerable women and their families.
2. Support small and medium-sized women-owned businesses through specific government support including grants, tax-breaks, loans and funding, as well as subsidized and state-backed loans. Economic Sectors and industries where women are a large proportion of workers, including childcare, domestic work, and the food service industry.
3. Ensure that women who are informal workers are covered under economic support (e.g. don’t only issue them through established formal sectors and industries).
4. Specifically engage women-led and women-focused organizations and advocacy groups to be members of stakeholder committees and task forces.

### Examples from around the world (strategy 2)

1. [The Asociación de Trabajadoras del Hogar, a Domicilio y Maquila (ATRAHDOM) is an organization in Guatemala that promotes labor and civil rights of women. During the pandemic, ATRAHDOM has coordinated efforts to bring relief to women domestic workers and other sectors where women are the majority of the labor force.](https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/9/feature-value-domestic-workers-across-latin-america)

## Strategy 3

Detect,support and amplify existing community-led initiatives and solutions.

- Timeframe: 3-6 Months (medium)
- Audience: Civil Society, Vulnerable Populations, Organized Civil Society, Nonprofits
- Type: Communications, Vulnerable Populations
- Strategy page: https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/detect,support-and-amplify-existing-community-led-

### Actions governments should take (strategy 3)

1. Identify community leaders and community groups in a given jurisdiction.
2. Conduct a community needs assessment that identifies community assets, including community organizations and assets that can be mobilized to support the response effort.
3. Establish formal relationships between the public health system and social service organizations.
4. Develop criteria that outlines profiles of organizations and people from the local community, that have the requisite knowledge of the community .
5. Meet with local authorities and key stakeholders (women, youths, older people) and discuss the importance of community-led initiatives.

### Examples from around the world (strategy 3)

1. [During the 2014 – 2015 Ebola outbreak, thousands of community health workers were trained to serve as contact tracers. The community health workers were a crucial supplement to the existing public health workforce and helped to link the community to testing and treatment centers. The community health workers were important to the success of the program, not only because they increased the number of workers, but because they were able to help overcome the fear and lack of trust in the country’s health system during the outbreak An important lesson from the Liberia experience is to train contact tracers to pay attention to the power dynamics within society and how the daily lives of people are structured.](https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/articles/10.31646/gbio.69/)

## Strategy 4

Crowdsource solutions and expertise from the public and affected populations through prizes,competitions,or online innovation sessions.

- Timeframe: 3-6 Months (medium)
- Audience: Civil Society, Organized Civil Society, Nonprofits
- Type: Technology/Innovation, Communications, Capacity Building, Vulnerable Populations
- Strategy page: https://coronavirus.smartercrowdsourcing.org/strategies/crowdsource-solutions-and-expertise-from-the-publi

### Actions governments should take (strategy 4)

1. Carry out an assessment, including a community mapping, to understand community structures, power dynamics, beliefs, capacities, and trusted and preferred channels of communication and sources of information.
2. Create an online challenge where teams can submit innovative solutions or ideas to solve specific problems. Offer financial, reputational, or institutional support as incentives.
3. Ensure problems that need to be solved are well defined and have a clear, articulated goal for participants to achieve
4. Host the challenge or hackathon on an open and accessible forum, such as Your Priorities.
5. If offering a prize, ensure that the prize is commensurate with the intended goal/outcome. Make sure it is culturally or otherwise appropriate for the participants of the challenge.
6. Recruit a diverse representation of participants through targeted advertising, recruitment, and outreach.

### Examples from around the world (strategy 4)

1. [The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hosted a series of challenges to empower the public to take action on the COVID-19 crisis. This “MIT COVID-19 Challenge.” MIT has run these challenges for specific audiences and specific groups of innovators, including for Latin American, African and Indian contexts.](https://covid19challenge.mit.edu/)