Communications That Centre Community

At Te Hiku Iwi Development Trust, I saw firsthand what happens when communications is built around community need. Every piece of work started with a question: who is this for, and what do they actually need to hear? Not what the funder wanted to say. Not what the board report required. What the whānau on the ground needed.

The contrast with large-scale government communications couldn't be sharper. I've sat in rooms where campaign messaging was workshopped for weeks without a single person from the target community present. The result is always the same: polished creative, strong media buys, and a community that doesn't engage because the message wasn't built for them.

That number doesn't surprise me. You can feel it in the language, the framing, the assumptions baked into every line. When an organisation writes about a community rather than with them, people notice.

It's not a workshop with sticky notes and a facilitator who flies in from Wellington. Community-centred communications requires three things most organisations aren't willing to commit to.

You can't parachute into a community, run a focus group, and call it engagement. The organisations I've seen do this well, including Te Hiku, had years of relationship built before any communications strategy was written. The strategy emerged from those relationships. It wasn't imposed on them.

In my role at the Ministry of Education, I've worked to bring this same principle into government comms for Māori communities. It's harder in a large organisation. The systems aren't built for it. But it's not impossible, and the difference in engagement when you get it right is measurable.

This goes beyond translation. Te reo Māori isn't a communications tactic. When I use te reo in government communications, it's because te reo is the natural language of the communities we're speaking with. The kaupapa demands it.

But it also means understanding register, tone, and context. A kaumātua at a hui doesn't want the same message framing as a rangatahi scrolling social media. Both are valid audiences. Both deserve communications designed for them, not adapted from a generic template.

Community-centred comms means being accountable to the community, not just to the organisation. That's uncomfortable for a lot of communicators. It means the community can tell you your messaging is wrong. It means you change direction when the feedback demands it, even if the creative is already approved.

At Te Hiku, this accountability was built into how we worked. The rōpū shaped the message. If it didn't resonate, we went back. Not because we'd failed, but because that's how genuine engagement works.

I don't need to look far for examples. COVID-19 communications in Aotearoa showed both extremes. The national campaign was well-funded and professionally produced. And for many Māori and Pacific communities, it landed flat.

The communications that actually moved the needle came from iwi, Pacific churches, and community organisations who knew their people. They didn't have the budget. They had the trust. And trust is not something you can buy in a media schedule.

If you're a communicator in government or the private sector, the shift is simple to describe and hard to execute.

Stop starting with the brief. Start with the community. Spend time listening before you write a single word of strategy. Build relationships with community leaders and organisations who already have the trust you're trying to earn. And when they tell you your approach is wrong, believe them.

My kete is grounded in delivering innovative, values-led outcomes that address the real needs of key stakeholders. That sounds like a professional statement, and it is. But it's also a commitment. Communications that centres community isn't a methodology. It's a value system. And it produces better outcomes for everyone, including the organisation paying for it.