Degrees of involvement

How much influence and control over your organisation do you want to give to different people? How big a commitment are you willing to make to enable their participation?

Choosing the right degree of involvement and making sure everyone is clear about the level of participation they are being given, will make it much easier to manage both the participation process and people's expectations.

Degrees of involvement

We have identified four degrees of involvement for you to consider. None is better than the others. What matters is to decide which is appropriate at a particular time, taking into account your organisation's needs and resources, and the knowledge, skills, and interests of the groups you want to involve.

Inform
Involvement goal:	To provide full information to enable people to make informed choices
Promise to users:	We will give you full and accessible information about services, to enable choice
Examples of methods:	Posters, leaflets, newsletters, websites, one-to-one interviews, open days

Consult
Involvement goal:	To get feedback on people's needs and views to inform decision-making
Promise to users:	We will ask for your views, demonstrate that we have heard them and tell you what decisions we make as a result
Examples of methods:	Surveys, focus groups, one-to-one interviews, open days, fun days, suggestion boxes

Engage
Involvement goal:	To collaborate with people in developing and delivering services
Promise to users:	We will invite you or your representatives to work alongside us to improve services
Examples of methods:	User forums, working groups, advisory groups, users training staff, mystery shoppers

Empower
Involvement goal:	To enable people to play an equal part in making the key decisions about services
Promise to users:	We will ask you to play an equal part in decision-making or to run your own projects
Examples of methods:	Open Space events, user-led projects or services, representatives on committees, user-led management committees

Access to your organisation

You will also need to decide whereabouts in your organisation you want to involve people, for example:

where people receive or encounter your services or products
where you plan and evaluate your services
where you make high-level, organisation-wide decisions.

Take a look at some examples of providing access to your organisation through different degrees of involvement.

Partnerships and collaboration

If you are considering how to involve other organisations in your work, you will probably be thinking of partnerships. For more on the topic of collaboration, take a look at the work of NCVO's Collaboration Team.

Organisational culture

The choices you make about how people can participate in your work is likely to raise questions about your organisation's culture. It may highlight how open your organisation is to new ideas, whether or not your leadership style is participatory, and how tight or loose your management structures are. NCVO's Governance and Leadership Team has some useful information about types of governance and management structures.