Building a Constituency for Change Is All About Skin in the Game

Step 3 of Transforming a Place Without Money or Authority

This newsletter is part 4 of a series on our seven-step placemaking process (what we like to call "how to get things done without a lot of money or authority"). If you missed the last part to this series, you can check it out here!

When you’re trying to improve a place, there are always people you’ll need something from — landlords, public agencies, funders, or partners. But before rushing to persuade them, it’s worth asking:

• Who are the people you want and need on your side accountable to?

• And who do you want to be accountable to?

These questions are at the heart of building a constituency that not only supports, but can amplify our desired change and the snowball effect we’re after. To transform a place without much money or authority, creating your constituency is both an act of empathetic discovery and a way of building power. Without it, you’ll quickly exhaust yourself and your resources trying to force a change on your own. With it, you unlock a base of support that not only increases your chances of success, but also attracts more resources and unexpected opportunities than you could have imagined at the start.

Constituency vs. Engagement

Whether the effort is big or small, it’s easy to confuse “constituency” with “engagement.” However, they’re not the same thing. Engagement often looks like: we’ll collect your input, disappear behind the scenes, and come back with a (often, but not always, well intentioned) solution we hope you like. There’s no real accountability there — just a transaction.

A constituency, on the other hand, is grounded in accountability. It’s about relationships over time, not a one-off interaction. It requires deeper discovery, shared participation, and a willingness to be on the hook for the impact of decisions. Constituency-building turns engagement into ownership: we’ll take input, do something with it, and stand accountable together for the results.

Your constituents are the ones who give you skin in the game: a share of benefits when things go well and meaningful pain should they go awry. An “engagement” effort provides no penalty for the misuse of the input given by those in charge.

That shift matters because successful placemaking depends on shared stewardship. Places thrive when people feel their voices and actions have direct effects — and not just in the design phase, but throughout the life of the space.

The Power of Other People’s Constituents (OPCs)

One of the most effective ways to build power in a placemaking effort is by recognizing and working with other people’s constituents.¹ While funding is always helpful, the real leverage comes from connecting with the people who matter most to the stakeholders you need cooperation from.

Think about it:

• Landlords care about tenants because they care about their investors most of all.

• Public sector staff care about elected officials.

• Elected officials care about voters, donors and public opinion.

• Businesses care about customers.

• Property managers care about landlords (not tenants!).

And you? You should care about the ordinary people most impacted by the place itself. Many of those “normal people” also turn out to be other people’s constituents — the very voices that your stakeholders can’t afford to ignore.

By discerning who other people’s constituents are and bringing them into your own constituency, you multiply your influence. No one delivers a stronger message for change than the people who already have a claim on your stakeholders’ attention.

Importantly, this isn’t about manipulation or pitting interests against each other. Done well, it’s about finding common ground and creating shared success. Everyone benefits from places that are vibrant, safe and welcoming. Aligning with other people’s constituents simply helps make those shared benefits visible to both the people in the space and the decision-makers who influence it.

The Virtuous Cycle of Asking, Doing and Inviting

Once you’ve created your constituency, you’ll want to engage with them to learn what their needs and desires are for the space you're improving. (We’ve already written about how to do engagement more effectively in past content, so I’ll let you read about it there.) Keep in mind that engagement isn’t just about gathering opinions: it’s also about building relationships and trust. Once you’ve collected insights, use them as a framework for solutions. The information you gather may ultimately just serve to confirm what you already know, and that's okay! Getting that corroboration will bring stakeholders and partners onboard more easily and give them more confidence in your proposals.

Additionally, make sure to communicate your findings back to the users along the way: doing so will build trust and enthusiasm for the project, as you demonstrate that you've heard people's needs and are actively seeking to address them. This responsiveness demonstrates that people’s voices truly matter, which in turn attracts greater support for current and future projects. When people see their ideas acted upon quickly, even in small ways, they feel empowered and excited to contribute more.

Moreover, when you actively listen to everyone, you may be surprised to find how often different groups might seem to have competing priorities at first glance, but actually want the same things for their community spaces. For example, in the Central Station project that we've cited throughout this series, stakeholders initially assumed that the space could not work for both (a) transit riders and youths AND (b) residents and office workers. The two groups were seen as competing entities, and one would necessarily have to be excluded for the space to be successful. We sought to dissolve that narrative and create a shared goal for all users.

To do this, we used an electronic survey to reach the office workers and residents in the area. We then hired outreach workers to engage with the youths and transit riders they had existing relationships with. What we found was that all of the groups we surveyed wanted more food, more activities, and, notably, everyone felt unsafe at Central Station, no matter what group they came from. People had been labeling the youths as "bad actors," only to find out they also felt unsafe with what was going on in that space.

These findings didn't just help the users: they also gave the nervous or skeptical elected officials, agency staff, landlords and other stakeholders of the area the confidence and motivation to move ahead with the improvements we were advocating for, because they knew now that all of the users (including residents and political constituents) essentially wanted the same things for the space.

Ultimately, placemaking — improving the experience of spaces — has to also be about driving change. Engagement shouldn’t just be a method to gather input, but a way to grow a constituency, build community power and create momentum. In our next article, we’ll explore how to go from creating your constituency to taking the first step in actually implementing changes. And in some ways, these two steps are intertwined, because nothing excites people more than just getting started and seeing tangible progress, and that in turn will grow your base of supporters!

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1. A play off of the real estate term “OPM” (i.e., other people’s money), which refers to using mostly (or entirely) other people’s debt and equity to buy and develop projects.