Rebecca Ashcroft – Senior Consultant, Frank Engagement.
In an election year, the political landscape can feel like shifting sand. It’s a tricky challenge – how do we maintain momentum and community trust across infrastructure projects, behaviour change initiatives, policy, or community development when the mandate we’re working under could vanish on election night?
While operating a-politically is part-and-parcel of working in public service, it’s particularly important for the survival of a long-term project. Here are some tips we’ve pulled together to keep your projects on course during an election year.
- Focus on ‘Why’ not ‘Who’
When the political rhetoric ramps up, engagement content needs to focus on the “why” not the political goals it achieves. Where possible, messaging should shift away from any political sponsors of a project to the enduring community need the project addresses.
- Evidence-based messaging: Ground your content in raw data and community feedback. For example, messaging on a public transport project should focus on reducing travel time or better connectivity, rather than fulfilling any political goals.
- Neutral voice: Use language that’s factual but accessible. Avoid any adjectives or slogans that may align with a specific party’s branding. While it can be tricky when incumbents are looking for opportunities to associate themselves with project success, where possible, use officers or project leads as spokespeople rather than politicians as elections near.
- Adaptive engagement
Engagement resilience is the ability of a project to maintain its relationship with stakeholders regardless of which way the political wind blows. The risk in an election year is communities questioning whether their input is a waste of time if a new government might scrap the plan.
To counter this, we recommend using adaptive engagement strategies:
- Problem-led, not solution-bound: Engage the community on the problem e.g., our town floods, rather than a specific political solution e.g., the X infrastructure grant. If the solution changes post-election, the community’s agreement on the problem remains a valid foundation for the next iteration.
- Modular engagement: Break down large projects into smaller phases. Communities feel more resilient when they see tangible progress on foundational elements that have momentum and any government would likely support.
- Voice of the community: Communicate to stakeholders that even if the policy shifts, their recorded preferences and concerns will be handed over to the next decision-makers as the definitive voice of the community.
- Strategies for managing uncertainty
- Scenario mapping: We advise clients to develop messaging for multiple election outcomes. This prevents a communication vacuum while the organisation pivots to the new government, which is where misinformation and anxiety can grow.
- Openness: If a project is at risk of stopping due to a change in government, be honest about the timeline. Tell the community: “We are gathering your insights now so that whoever forms the next government has a clear picture of your needs.”
- The trusted intermediary: In times of high political tension, the role of the project team or a company like Frank Engagement is to act as a buffer, as opposed to having politicians in the room. It’s important to provide a neutral space where stakeholders feel safe to discuss the merits of a project without engagement devolving into partisan debate.
Play the long game
Election years are short-term cycles, but engagement is a long-term relationship. By stripping away the politics from our engagement and communications and building frameworks that honour community input above political mandates, we ensure that projects don’t just survive the election cycle —they thrive because of the trust built during it.
While governance around the table can change, at Frank Engagement, we believe in thinking long-term – as reflected in the Waitaha whakatauki:
“Whatungarongaro he tangata, toitū te whenua.
As man disappears from sight, the land remains.”
