What is it?
Involving people outside the steering group, who will be crucial to the success of any work undertaken.
Stakeholders are individuals or groups that have an interest in the social marketing intervention. More >
Public sector organisations often have to deal with a wide range of stakeholders, all of whom will have their own agenda.
You need to identify who the stakeholders are, assess their expectations and develop ways to engage them. More >
It is useful to invite key stakeholders to form a steering (and/or an advisory) group with the core team.
Why do this?
A clear understanding of the nature of their expectations, interests, power and influence will help to avoid conflict and forge positive relationships.
- Stakeholders can be both positive and negative. More >
- You need to develop effective communication and participation with stakeholder groups.
- Involving external partners with a vested interest, who have the authority to represent their respective organisations, can add different opinions, resources and experience. They may actually become the mechanism to delivery interventions so may become providers at some point.
- Engaging external partners in early planning helps create allies rather than competitors.
How might you do this?
Identify who the key stakeholders are: More >
- Assess the expectations, power and interests of the stakeholders.
- Classify stakeholders, possibly organising your analysis in a diagram that maps out the stakeholders and helps you decide how best to relate to them. This can then be used to communicate within the team and with other parties.
- Remember that stakeholder analysis is a dynamic process. Stakeholders change their position and new stakeholders emerge.
- Also, remember that teams require management.
- A stakeholder analysis for the proposed social marketing intervention.
- A clear understanding of which groups and individuals have an interest, the nature of their expectations and their potential power and influence.
- Methods and responsibilities for communicating with relevant stakeholder groups.