Community Outreach Toolkit

Cultural Sensitivity Checklist

A comprehensive checklist to ensure your outreach and research practices respect Indigenous communities and cultural protocols.

Before Initial Contact

  • Research the community’s history, including impacts of colonization
  • Review existing institutional relationships or past conflicts
  • Understand current sovereignty status and governance structure
  • Examine your own motivations and potential biases
  • Identify appropriate cultural contacts (not just administrative staff)

Communication Practices

  • Use respectful, non-extractive language throughout
  • Listen more than you speak in all interactions
  • Avoid academic jargon and explain technical concepts clearly
  • Ask about preferred communication methods and protocols
  • Be patient with response times and respect community processes

Research Design

  • Center community benefit and priorities in research questions
  • Include community members as co-researchers, not just subjects
  • Plan for community involvement in all research phases
  • Prepare for the possibility that the answer might be “no”
  • Design data governance to prioritize community control

Ongoing Relationships

  • Commit to long-term partnership beyond single projects
  • Respect decisions about publication and sharing
  • Share results with communities before academic publication
  • Maintain regular communication and relationship building
  • Support community capacity building and training

Related Resources

Additional tools and frameworks to support ethical community engagement.

Process Map
View process map
Directory
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Four Rs Framework
Learn the Four Rs