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A community is a group of people with a common interest or a collective identity. A community forum is a public meeting where people who are interested in a particular topic are encourged to attend and share their knowledge, perspectives, and experiences.

A community forum should be used when your collaboration wants to get input from a wide range of people and wants to raise awareness.

Benefits

  • Community forums are relatively inexpensive and easy to plan.
  • They can be an effective way to raise awareness about a particular issue.
  • They can identify people who may be helpful to your collaboration’s planning effort.

Drawbacks

  • Community forums require a lot of publicity to get a good turn out.
  • The individuals who participate in the forum may not be representative of the community as a whole.
  • The forum could become a grievance session for those individuals in the community who have complaints.
  • The information collected may not be able to be used for planning purposes.