3 Engaging Stakeholders
This guide will be going into detail on how you can identify and engage stakeholders in any project you are hoping to pursue! Stakeholders can range from subject-matter experts to community members you would like to interview. The steps are outlined below, and follow the process of identification, outreach, a stakeholder interview (or some form of contact), and finally how to sustain this stakeholder relationship with short and long-term engagement. At MacChangers, we primarily engage with stakeholders as part of our problem scoping process. Check out our guide on problem scoping for more information.
Step 1: Stakeholder Identification
The first step in engaging stakeholders relies on your ability to accurately identify them. To begin, first, create a “profile” for your ideal stakeholder. This may be difficult in the beginning, especially when you don’t know who an ideal stakeholder for your project may be, so alternatively, you may create a guide for different qualities, backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge you hope your stakeholder will have and be able to share with you.
To help with this, lay out a general foundation for your project so that you can not only formulate a list of potential stakeholders to engage with, but so that you can also have guiding materials to propose to your stakeholder during the outreach process. During this process of identification, use any means and networks available to you, your contacts, or even your contact’s contacts. These networks can range anywhere from your work and volunteer experiences, colleagues, social media and LinkedIn contacts, and provide for a higher rate of engagement success as you are already being connected. If none of these options yield results for potential stakeholders, begin to look beyond these and be prepared to cold call/email individuals outside your network.
Step 2: Stakeholder Outreach
The stakeholder outreach process is one of the longest and most strenuous ones, as it relies on the stakeholder’s response, which could take days, weeks or even months to receive. Depending on who your stakeholder is you should pick a contact method most attuned to them to receive the earliest response. For example, if this stakeholder actively engages within LinkedIn, that may be a good platform to try to reach them through. Since this stakeholder response has an unforeseen time period, it is important to initiate first contact with your stakeholders as soon as possible.
In this initial contact, it is important to keep your message short, concise, direct, and tailored to your stakeholder’s interests. If reaching out to more high-profile stakeholders, who comparatively have less time to attend to messages, try to conduct some preliminary research on their work, interests and goals, and attempt to align these with your own project inquiries when requesting an interview. In other words, clearly outline why the project would benefit from the stakeholder’s input, and how the c