Engaging stakeholders: from having a say to deciding together
Why engaging is more than consulting, how to map stakeholders, and which forms of participation work.
For charities and non-profits, public-private partnerships and 1 moreEngagementBelongs to
- For
- Charities and non-profits, Public-private partnerships, Corporate sustainability
- Perspective
- Engagement
- Phase
- Engagement & communication, Discussion, decision & adoption
- Frameworks and methods
- Most significant change (MSC)
- Keywords
- Workshop
A charity, a council or a company is quick to say it engages its stakeholders. Often that means a meeting, a survey, and then the board decides alone. Real engagement goes further. Whoever stands closest to a problem often knows the most about the solution.
What we see when it works
- Solutions fit better, because they don’t rest on assumptions.
- People keep going longer with what they helped to think up.
- Power to decide is shared more fairly.
Mapping your stakeholders
A well-known tool is a matrix of power and interest. Those with a lot of power and a lot of interest, you involve closely. Those with little of either, you keep informed.
That matrix has a blind spot. Those with the least power often have the most at stake. Never use it as a reason to skip their voices.
Forms of participation
- Designing together, with people instead of for them.
- Evaluating together, with participants as assessors.
- Collecting stories about the most significant change.
- Letting people tell their story in their own photos.
- Doing research together, with shared ownership.
What we notice in practice
- Pay people for their time and knowledge.
- Choose a place, time and language that work for them.
- Let them shape the agenda, not just the answers.
- Be honest about what isn’t possible.
- Show what happened with their input.
The same goes for a partnership. A steering group that only sets the shared goals misses the voice of those who feel the effects. A company does a materiality assessment for European sustainability reporting (CSRD). It only really hears the stakeholders in its value chain when they can help decide. Otherwise it stays a tick box in the annual report.
The question we keep asking: who here has the power to say no?
