One way is to get to know their community and development team through social media and events. Slack, Discord and Telegram have all become popular ways to communicate directly with those involved in a particular project online, as well as stay up to date with their latest announcements, roadmap, white paper, etc. :)
Local Meetup Groups and live AMAs on YouTube are also great ways to ask questions and get answers in real time, from real people who are active participants and have influence on how things will progress in the future.