Stakeholder needs

When deciding who to involve in developing your organisation, and how, it's important to consider their possible motivations for getting involved, the needs they might have, and the barriers they could face.

The clearer and more specific you can be about exactly who you want to involve, and why, the easier it will be to understand their specific expectations and requirements and find the right way to involve them. Consider your stakeholders.

Motivations

People's motivations for getting involved in your work can be broken down into two main categories.

Personal gain

For example:

hoping to change or improve a service they use
gaining skills or knowledge
networking
money or other perks
a desire to influence the organisation in some way.

Altruism: concern for the welfare of others or the world around you

For example:

a sense of duty: wanting to give something back
a commitment to shared values or wanting to work towards a better world
attachment to a community through shared experience such as geography, the past, an organisation, or illness.

Of course, the reasons for people's actions are complex and may involve elements of both these motivations.

Barriers to involvement

It's important to identify the common barriers that can stop people getting involved, so that you can address them in your planning. Here are some examples of likely barriers:

time, care or work commitments
physical or sensory barriers
cynicism
lack of confidence
fear of negative responses
inaccessible information
cultural or socio-economic barriers.

Reaching your target audiences

For hints on how to reach your target audiences, take a look at our introduction to marketing or browse through some examples of tools and techniques for involving people.

But before you begin, are you ready to imvolve people in your work?