The First Nations Community Engagement: Industry Guide (here after referred to as the Guide) was developed through working group collaborations between Indigenous leaders, industry, and academic researchers.

The Guide was developed as a resource for organisations and governments to assess their current First Nations community engagement approaches, policies, and practices. While there are many ways of building strong relationships with First Nations communities, the development of this Guide through collaborative, iterative, research activities and our incorporation of international standards for community engagement and participation, aims to support strengthening cultural capability of industry and governments. The Guide provides a measurable framework for enabling organisations at policy, project planning, and leadership levels to successfully engage with Australian First Nations communities, leaders and organisations. This measurement process gives understanding of the depth of engagement to better recognize and deliver on the principles of self-determination.

The Guide is built on shared principles of inclusivity and respect, transparency, being responsive, trust and face-to-face engagement. It sets out the First Nations community engagement scale to identify different levels of community engagement. The Guide then provides an engagement matrix to help organisations define and measure their levels of community engagement. The matrix assists practitioners to consider the impact to the community and opportunities for community involvement in decision-making relevant to their local contexts and community needs. Finally, the Guide provides a non-exhaustive list of engagement methods and tools to support organisations to deliver on self-determination goals.

To complement the Guide, online and workshop training packages are being produced to support organisations to work with First Nations communities and truly understand how their engagement practices can be effectively measured and actioned with confidence through culturally appropriate, locally-based strategies and commitment.