Stakeholder engagement

The organisation is accountable to a range of internal and external stakeholders.  These may include service-users/beneficiaries, staff, volunteers, partners, funders, and regulatory bodies like the Charity Commission.  It, therefore, has an obligation to be open and honest with these stakeholders; to listen and respond to their views and aspirations.

In order to be open, responsive and accountable, management committees need to actively engage with their organisation’s stakeholders.  Entering into dialogue with stakeholders can bring a number of benefits to the management committee and the organisation:

• it ensures the organisation continues to meet their needs
• it ensures the organisation maintains their engagement and support
• it enables the organisation to address any concerns and continuously improve and
• it keeps the management committee in touch with changing environments and requirements

It is therefore important to regularly review who are your organisation’s stakeholders and how best to engage with them.

Identifying your stakeholders

Stakeholders will vary according to the nature of the organisation, but the following groups should be considered:

• Beneficiaries
• Service users
• Families and friends of service users/beneficiaries
• Suppliers
• Funders
• Contractors
• Statutory policy- decision-makers
• Individual volunteer fundraisers
• Members or supporters
• Partner organisations
• Regulatory bodies
• Umbrella bodies
• Local community
• Staff

How to engage with stakeholders

Management committees have a range of ways of engaging with stakeholders.  Different stakeholders need to be engaged in different ways.  An open and responsive management committee will incorporate a combination of different levels of intensity of engagement, including communication, consultation, involvement and co-design and/or co-production.

Communication

Some of the methods that voluntary and community organisations use to communicate with their stakeholders include:

• Regular newsletters (printed, email or even poster format)
• Annual reporting
• Impact report (showing what difference the organisation makes)
• Disseminating the strategic plan
• Periodic updates regarding key developments
• Circulation of publications or publications list
• Articles in sector press or local newspapers.
• Website
• Social media
• Online meetings
• Face-to-face meetings

Consultation

Some of the methods that voluntary and community organisations use to consult with their stakeholders include:

• Surveys
• Focus groups
• One-line or face-to-face 1:1 meetings
• Open meetings
• Strategic planning workshops
• Feedback consultation processes (e.g. on a draft strategic plan)
• Independent evaluations
• Online or postal voting (esp. with members) on key issues for the organisation
• Service-user comments/feedback forms

Involvement

Some of the methods that voluntary and community organisations use to involve their stakeholders include:

• Consider how key stakeholders can be represented on the management committee, or attend management committee meetings in a non-voting capacity
• Create a shadow board of service-users
• Create a service-user panel
• Create a strategic advisory panel of key external stakeholders (e.g. funders)
• Create advisory committees or working groups on key issues

Co-design and co-production

Increasingly organisations are expected to create and develop services in collaboration with service users, beneficiaries and/or members and organisations who work closely with them.  Some of the ways of implementing co-design and co-production principles include:

• Consider how people can be involved in assessing what is needed and what the outcomes are you want to achieve
• Consider how people can be involved in an active and equal way in planning and shaping the creation and/or development of services
• Consider how people can be involved in making decisions about the allocation of resources
• Consider the role of people in co-delivery of services e.g., through the involvement of volunteers
• Consider how people can be involved in evaluating the service