PLANNED COMMUNITY RELATIONS
PROGRAM
Learning Objective: Recognize the stages of a planned
community relations program.
Developing a planned community relations
program is a problem that the public affairs staff must
solve. There are four basic stages to developing a
community relations program for a typical Navy
command:
l Fact-finding
l Planning
l Communicating
. Evaluating
FACT FINDING
To maintain an effective community relations
program, you must identify the community needs and
command abilities. If the interests of the command do
not coincide with the interests of the community, all your
activities will be in vain. You must identify areas in
which the command can make a positive contribution to
the community within its abilities and assets. Ideally,
your community relations program should fulfill a
common interest. Thus these common interests must be
identified through fact-finding.
A good many “common interests” exist at most
installations. Your most valuable assets–people-are
already making such contributions. People of all ranks,
ages and education levels bring their own unique
interests and activities with them when they arrive at
your command. These are the Little League baseball
coaches, the Scout masters, the scuba divers, the karate
enthusiasts, the members of the local PTA, the
performers in church choirs-those who participate in all
manners of community activities.
A practical way of finding these people is to do a
feature story for your base newspaper. You will likely
discover that one contact leads to another. One person
active in some community endeavor almost always
knows someone else in another. It makes great feature
copy and might even be suitable for a local media
release. People, and the interests and activities they
bring with them, are a valuable part of your “positive
contribution” to the community. If both you and your
community are aware of it, so much the better.
You can use your knowledge of these people and
their activities to improve your overall community
relations program. You also can use knowledge of the
local power structure. The local power structure and
organization must be determined. It is essential that
these areas be considered; otherwise, you move into
your community relations program blind. The
community power structure is discussed later in this
chapter.
Community Relations Requirements
Community relations requirements can only be
determined after you know and become familiar with
the mission and organization of your command. If these
requirements do not exist, it is your responsibility to
determine them. If they do exist, it is equally important
that they reflect current requirements. Staff meetings,
histories, permanent records and files (particularly those
in the public affairs office) and interviews with key
military officers are prime sources for this information.
Full public understanding and cooperation are
essential to mission accomplishment. You should
identify possible sources of problems or obstructions to
effective community relations and gather the essential
facts related to preventing these situations from
becoming community relations problems.
Aircraft noise, reckless driving, misunderstandings
in labor relations, pollution of civilian communities,
disorderly behavior and apparent disregard for the
health and welfare of local citizens are recurring
problems in naval community relations. To overlook
these and other potential community relations problems
is to risk unfavorable publicity, possible congressional
action, antimilitary demonstrations and strikes and a
hostile relationship with the community.
Command Interest and Support
Command interest and support for community
relations should be sought early in the relationship
between an officer in command and his public affairs
staff. If the officer in command does not voluntarily
reveal his philosophy and willingness to commit
resources, the public affairs office should, on its own
initiative, survey the needs of the command and prepare
recommendations for a community relations program.
Ideally, there should be a policy statement and an outline
of general objectives signed by the officer in command
and addressed to key staff members and COs of
subordinate units.
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