Our community-centered design methodology is geared to help any organization embarking on a project that will impact their local community. It sets out our steps for how to engage, collaborate and co-design programs and projects with people in a local community so that their needs are heard and met. Shift focuses its methodology on applying community-driven design practices to cultural heritage equity initiatives (check out our case studies), but the guidelines can steer any project where community engagement is desired.

The ultimate goal is that, through collaboration and addressing shared concerns, local needs are accounted for and fulfilled, and organizations and their initiatives matter more to the people in their local community.

Our methodology is comprised of a six-phase process covering about 28 guidelines centered on community input and involvement. These phases and guidelines can be applied sequentially or in any order that suits the project at hand.

The main points are these:

When Shift takes on a project, we start out by learning about the topic or issue, and the community we are about to engage. We think about who is at the center of the project — the people who will be impacted, targeted for engagement, or who are otherwise likely to be invested in the issue. We engage community members to find out what they are already doing (or have already accomplished) around the issue. From there, we confirm that a need exists, and then we listen and learn.

The rest of the process includes phases for planning, design, implementation, reflection and refinement, and the steps needed to accomplish them.

In each case, the desired objective is to use the methodology as a model for community-driven design practices as it relates to an organization’s specific project. That model can be applied to similar initiatives or to later stages of the organization’s current project.