Engaging stakeholders is often the secret ingredient to making magic happen with your projects and strategies. Whether it’s holding one to one interviews with external supporters to find out their views on your organization, or running an internal workshop to listen to points of view from outside of your team or your day to day, there is something incredibly powerful about listening to the ideas and contributions of those close to your cause.
What to consider when soliciting the voice of the stakeholder
Capturing the stakeholder voice creates insights that are bespoke to your organization. There will be staff members, trustees, volunteers and alumni who all have a connection with you and opinions about what it is you’re doing well and opportunities to improve. Holding space to hear these opinions is a powerful thing and can help create a narrative about how your organization is performing in the eyes of those who value it the most. If you’re feeling brave and can add some dissenting voices to the mix, this will also help to see why someone might leave your cause or choose to change their support.
We share our top reasons for building the voice of the stakeholder into your next project or strategy approach and offer hints and tips to get the most from listening to the community that surrounds and supports your cause.
There is a rich reserve of knowledge in your stakeholders
Diversity of viewpoint and a range of knowledge and experiences mean your stakeholders have huge amounts of value to contribute to plans you are making. Consider the information you might be able to learn from some of the stakeholders we have suggested below:
- A staff member with long-tenure can offer an historical perspective and tap into their deep relationships with donors
- Newer members of staff have a fresh set of eyes to offer you their feedback
- Trustees and board members who work in different disciplines can exchange ideas with how things work in those businesses
- Supporters can offer that incredibly valuable asset – the donor voice. It can be helpful to speak to both engaged donors and those who are lapsed to understand their whys.
Consider what’s in it for them. Time poor staff may struggle to make the space for a conversation. External supporters who need to fit in a call with you around their work and lives might need to deprioritize a chat if other appointments crop up. Being able to articulate the value to both sides of the conversation is important, so you are able to provide a win win and book in those all-important meetings.
Ticking two boxes – learning and collaborating
The importance of collaboration is something we’re all aware of, and when new pieces of work are afoot it can be even more important to make sure other parts of the business are working together well. Bringing internal stakeholder groups into a project at the inception can mean going on a learning journey together. Having different voices in the room to test your brief and ensure it is robust, to challenge the direction you are proposing and to see if they have a role to play in a project’s success mean new initiatives start off strong and with buy in where it matters.
The aim is to be more than the sum of your parts, so think about who you can learn the most from and who you will be collaborating with down the line. If you are building a strategy, perhaps having someone from the finance team in the room to share their voice will help with understanding budgets and targets. Working on a project that will be delivered in the digital space? Who can you invite from your digital team to add value to the project by sharing their opinions? If you’re venturing into new ground with a project that hasn’t been done before, consider if there are external voices close to the cause, or if there is a trustee who can join your conversation in an advisory capacity, to help draw the guidelines for your unchartered territory.
Who are they sharing their thoughts with?
When chatting with stakeholders, we find that using an external facilitator can be the way to yield the most honest results from a series of interviews. For internal stakeholders in particular, when people chat to a neutral third party, they often feel they can share things they may not be comfortable saying to colleagues. A facilitator works best when able to hold a safe space by ensuring what is shared remains confidential. This doesn’t mean the learnings don’t benefit the client, but that they are anonymized, with ideas shared in a general rather than specific way to protect individuals.
There can be an element of trust building that needs to take place to have valuable and insightful interviews. These can be achieved by setting ground rules for the conversation or workshop, and by discussing expectations of ascertaining their viewpoint. Think about what you are going to do with the information they share and check how you are obtaining it to make sure you are mindful of the time people are giving to you, and making the most of the questions you can ask.
Listen, learn, collaborate
Stakeholders can hold the key to a deep understanding of your cause, can have the ability to challenge you constructively in how you approach a piece of work, and, in collaborating effectively with you, can help to drive projects along to a better conclusion. Working out how to effectively engage your stakeholders; internal and external, warm and lapsed, could be the key to the success of your next project. What’s stopping you?!