Category: Community engagement

Reforestation is an issue we’re passionate about here at Meaningful, so we were delighted to support the launch of Trees of Music, a new campaign by the classical music world to protect the endangered Pernambuco tree in Brazil. Pernambuco wood is essential in the manufacture of musical bows, and by helping to reforest these precious musical trees, the campaign aims to preserve the future of classical music for generations to come.

Pernambuco or brazilwood was found to be ideal for manufacturing bows in the mid-18th century due to its ability to hold a fixed curve, gaining favour with classical musicians due to its unique resonance and sound quality.

Yet years of illegal deforestation and exploitation mean the tree that gave its name to Brazil is now on the brink of extinction. Although Pernambuco was listed as an endangered species in 2007, over 20,000 violin bows made with illegally logged wood were seized in 2018 and the tree’s native Atlantic Forest habitat has shrunk to just 6% of its original size. Without help, the Pernambuco tree could be gone for good in less than a decade.

Trees of Music is now calling on lovers of classical music to help replenish these overexploited trees, restore their degraded native ecosystems and create a sustainable, long-term source of Pernambuco to keep the music playing for generations of classical music lovers to come. 

Led by Master bow-maker and ecologist Marco Rapso, the campaign aims to distribute 50,000 Pernambuco saplings to small-scale farmers in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. The saplings will be planted along environmentally-sensitive ecological corridors, helping to regenerate natural habitats, provide vital livelihood opportunities for rural agriculturalists and secure the long-term future of classical string instruments.

Trees of Music launched on 21 March 2021 to coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Forests, kicking off a 12-month series of international events, activities and performances. There is a website where people can learn how to get involved, social media accounts to connect the global classical music community and a crowdfunding campaign to help mobilise resources.

Ahead of the campaign launch, Meaningful was pleased to provide Trees of Music with three months of pro-bono strategic and advisory support, which included:

• Campaign strategy and direction
• PR 
• Digital marketing
• Social media
• Web development
• Copywriting and content creation

The campaign has already received coverage from leading classical music press including BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and The Strad magazine, and has attracted some high-profile ambassadors from the classical musical world such as New Jersey Symphony Orchestra violinist JoAnna Farrer, cellist Nathalie Haas, and pianist and composer Ben Comeau.

Violinist Viktoria Mullova has recorded a special track for Trees of Music by Brazil’s first woman conductor Chiquinha Gonzaga: a simplified arrangement will be made available for individuals, ensembles and school orchestras to perform as part of the campaign.

Trees of Music uses classical music as a platform to inspire cross-cultural collaboration, elicit behaviour change and transform the impacts of harmful extractive industries into opportunities for reforestation. In future, the movement will extend its support to other endangered Trees of Music: the Pernambuco is just the beginning!

Learn more about Trees of Music

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Instagram

On 25 February, a group of community engagement specialists came together in a virtual roundtable event to ask ‘How can we work together to shape our towns and cities for the better?’ Their thought-provoking discussion is presented in an exclusive new report.

Hosted by built environment hub Build Studios in partnership with community engagement app SitePodium, the event offered important insight into how developers can be more inclusive and collaborative in their approach and how local communities can be empowered to shape their environment in a positive way.

As a communications agency that specialises in the built environment and works with clients to develop successful relationships with local stakeholders, Meaningful was well-positioned to manage this event from start to finish, including:

• Convening an expert speaker panel
• Promoting the event online
• Writing and designing a report
• Designing social media graphics to support a digital marketing campaign
• Producing a video

Key takeaways

We need to start moving to models by which there’s far more equity in the decision-making process.

Akil Scafe-Smith

Recognising that the built environment has traditionally been shaped by a small group of people and the development process can sometimes feel opaque, the panel noted a palpable sense of change in the air with growing awareness of the issues and inequalities in society, people are speaking up, calling for change and demanding to be involved in local decision-making like never before.

Digital tools offer lots of benefits: it’s a case of using those tools in a considered way to ask the right questions and get responses in a format that’s useful.

Jessica Cargill-Thompson

While traditional and in-person forms of stakeholder communication still hold value in helping developers reach the widest possible demographic, it’s clear that Covid-19 lockdowns have fast-tracked digital engagement across the board. The panel discussed how virtual engagement can still be made to feel personal and that creative responses to online consultations are often the most effective.

Construction firms now understand that proper community engagement is part of the process, not just something forced upon them by a regulatory framework.

Lucas Wijntjes

Panellists commented on how the built environment has evolved over time, noting that developers have a responsibility to inform communities about local projects – and that providing proper access to information helps build understanding and support.

Engagement should be a joyful process so that people want to participate.

Catherine Grieg

The discussion highlighted the importance of making stakeholder communication an interesting, relevant and hands-on experience for the local communities it aims to reach, while noting that “it’s a massive privilege to have time to participate.” One panellist described the value of collaborating with existing civic groups, particularly when engaging with young people “being local practitioners is how we connect to local people”.

If we’re looking to change the way we engage with communities, what should those improvements be?

Helen Santer

The discussion raised some important questions such as whether strong feelings on social media led to actual engagement and how long-term relationships could be built with communities. Barriers to engagement were also discussed, such as shifting political landscapes, being unable to meet in person due to Covid-19 and the availability of internet access by different groups. The conversation ended with each expert offering their view on which elements of community engagement most need to be improved.

A big thank you to Helen Santer for facilitating this vibrant discussion and our expert panel for their valuable perspectives: Lucas Wijntjes, Jessica Cargill Thompson, Catherine Greig and Akil Scafe-Smith of RESOLVE Collective.

Read the full report here or watch a summary of the event below.

Over the past 20 years, working from a range of vantage points in the built environment has given me first-hand experience of the benefits of effective community engagement – and how by failing to listen to the voices of their audience, many organisations are missing an important trick.

Consulting an audience of end-users about their interests, views and needs at an early stage in a project – when there’s real opportunity for people to get involved and have their say – may sound like an obvious process, but too often it gets overlooked.

Today’s organisations need multiple ways for end-users to engage, contribute and offer their feedback and suggestions on an ongoing basis

In recent years I’ve seen how social media and digital technologies have transformed opportunities for stakeholder engagement, offering new ways to reach those who, for example, wouldn’t typically respond to a public consultation. Today’s organisations need multiple ways for end-users to engage, contribute and offer their feedback and suggestions on an ongoing basis. Simply setting up a customer service channel through which people can complain is no longer enough.

Good stakeholder comms is ultimately about listening – it’s about building meaningful relationships with real people, and it can help businesses and investors from all industries get to the root of what their communities really want. And since brands and reputations are built – or damaged – with each encounter, the more we can proactively and positively engage with our audience, the more ownership and buy-in we’ll receive from them in return.

Successful community engagement helps:

• new and existing audiences to be consulted on important topics
• build ongoing stakeholder dialogue and relationships
• demonstrate the transparency of a project or organisation
• important updates to be shared on both sides
• document community questions, comments and complaints in a measurable way

I recently shared my take on the importance of community engagement and the role technology can play in an interview with SitePodium, a construction industry app that enables effective two-way conversations between the development industry and local communities.

Read the SitePodium interview here