communities aren't the problem. they're the intelligence.
At Trellis Impact 2026, Katie Ryan and Sam Hartsock sat down to talk about a question that’s becoming increasingly important as organizations now regularly navigate AI, energy infrastructure, disaster resilience and community engagement:
published 7.15.25
What if trust isn't simply the outcome of good community engagement, but a form of infrastructure that determines whether major initiatives succeed in the first place?
Watch the conversation below, then keep reading for a few ideas we didn’t have time to fully unpack.
Every organization invests in business intelligence.
Leaders rely on market research, financial analysis, operational data and risk assessments to make informed decisions. Entire teams exist to gather the information needed to move a business forward with confidence.
Yet many companies spend far less time building an equally rigorous understanding of the people who ultimately determine whether those decisions succeed.
At qb., we think about this as stakeholder intelligence—that is, treating communities, employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders as a source of strategic insight rather than simply an audience to “engage”. Whether you're deciding where to build, what to automate, or how to scale, the quality of your decisions depends on the quality of what you know about the people affected by them.
The Myth: Communities Resist Change
One of the most common assumptions we encounter in our work at qb. (and what was a BIG theme at Trellis Impact’26 re:data center buildouts and the infrastructure needed to support AI), is that: communities resist change. We've found that the reality is far more nuanced.
People don't inherently resist change. They resist being excluded from decisions that affect them or being informed only after those decisions have already been made. Take the current conversation around data centers. The instinct is often to ask: Why are communities opposing data centers?
We think a more useful question is: How can communities be a source of strategic intelligence rather than a stakeholder group to manage?
This positioning changes stakeholder engagement from a downstream communications activity into an upstream business capability—where community knowledge informs decisions while there is still an opportunity to shape them.
Listening Isn't THE Activity
One of the clearest differences between community engagement and stakeholder intelligence is what happens after people share their perspectives. Gathering input is only the beginning.
Organizations build trust when they come back and show what changed—how input informed decisions, influenced priorities, clarified tradeoffs, etc. Even when recommendations can't be implemented, people want to, and deserve to, understand how their perspectives shaped the conversation. Engagement is extractive when people are asked to contribute their time, expertise and lived experience while never seeing where it went or whether it mattered.
Closing the loop is part of the work.
Trust Behaves Like Infrastructure
The more we work across challenges—from climate resilience and disaster preparedness to AI and responsible supply chains—the more convinced we’ve become that trust behaves like infrastructure.
When it's present, collaboration moves more smoothly, difficult conversations become more productive and organizations are better equipped to navigate uncertainty.
When it's missing, every initiative becomes harder.
Organizations don't have to choose between moving quickly and bringing people along. More often, the actual choice is between investing in relationships early or spending significantly more time rebuilding them later.
Want to keep reading about stakeholder intelligence and trust?
We've explored them in much greater depth in People-First Resilience: A Field Guide—a practical resource for organizations looking to strengthen trust, engage communities more effectively and build resilience alongside the people most affected by change.
by Sam Hartsock
Strategy Lead + Cofounder
