There is growing recognition within the Australian emergency management sector of the need to engage communities as core partners, where they are considered equals in risk-related decision-making processes that affect them (Attorney-General’s Department 2013). There is, however, little guidance available to practitioners about how best to involve communities in risk reduction processes and little evidence on which to build approaches. To address these gaps, the New South Wales State Emergency Service (NSW SES) instigated a pilot program to investigate and evaluate methods to involve communities in flood emergency planning within three NSW communities. This paper outlines the pilot process, the design of programs and evaluation results.