We talk a lot about reaching people.
For years, organisations have used expressions such as “hard to reach”, although many of us have become increasingly uncomfortable with that description. Because perhaps people aren’t particularly hard to reach. We know where they are. People go to schools, shops, cafés, libraries, parks, community centres and places of worship. They belong to Facebook groups. They wait at bus stops. They talk to neighbours. They walk the dog. They take their children to school. Perhaps the problem isn’t that people are hard to reach. Perhaps our door isn’t visible from where they are.
And finding the door is only the beginning. Can I tell what this door is for? Am I allowed through it? Will somebody welcome me? Do I need to know something before I enter? Will I be expected to volunteer, join something, commit to something, fill in a form or become something? Can I just have a look? Can I leave again? That last one matters a lot.
We talk a great deal about participation and involvement, particularly when we’re thinking about communities and nature. But participation can very quickly begin to sound like an obligation. Sometimes the first doorway simply needs to say: Come in. Have a look. You don’t have to do anything.
Lots of different doors
Those doorways can be physical. A shed in a park. A library. An environmental centre. A community garden. A café. A Nature Hub. Even a bench where somebody regularly sits and talks to people.
They can be digital. A webpage. A QR code. An email address. A Facebook group. A map showing you somewhere you could visit.
But a digital doorway has to lead somewhere useful. A QR code that takes somebody to an impenetrable webpage isn’t really a doorway. It’s more like finding another locked door.
And then there are the less obvious doorways. A person can be a doorway. So can an invitation, an activity, a question, a conversation or simple curiosity.
“What birds have you seen around here?” might be a much better doorway into caring about nature than: “Would you like to become involved in our environmental programme?”
Advertise the doors
Perhaps this is something we need to think about more. We are quite good at advertising destinations:
Volunteer. Join the Friends Group. Become a Green Champion. Attend our event. Help nature.
But perhaps we also need to advertise the ways in.
Want to ask something? Start here.
Want somewhere to go? Come here.
Want to meet somebody? They’ll be here.
Want to learn something? Try this.
Want to help? Here’s something small.
Just curious? You’re welcome too.
And then let people decide for themselves how far they want to go. Most importantly, let’s advertise those doors to everybody. We don’t necessarily need to decide in advance who is “hard to reach” and then construct a special entrance for them.
We can create lots of ordinary, visible, welcoming doorways and put them in the places people already are. Perhaps, then, we need to change the question.
Instead of asking:
“How do we reach these people?”
we could ask:
“How easy have we made it for people to reach us?”
That feels like a very different place to begin welcoming people in.
Naturally Birmingham CIC 