What is Stakeholder Engagement and Why Does It Matter?

Every day, your nonprofit makes decisions that impact many people within your community. Therefore, it’s your responsibility to consider their various needs, interests, and priorities whenever you’re preparing for a fundraising campaign, launching a new program, or developing a strategic plan to guide your growth. By focusing on what matters most to your stakeholders, you can ensure that you’re making the greatest impact possible with the resources at your disposal.

Stakeholder engagement allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s important to your nonprofit’s community and use their input to guide your strategies. By making your stakeholders feel like they have a voice in the decisions you make, you can turn them into long-term partners in your impact.

What Is Stakeholder Engagement?

Put simply, stakeholder engagement refers to the process of involving and collaborating with those in your community who are invested in or affected by your nonprofit’s activities. Common stakeholders include:

• Donors
• Beneficiaries
• Corporate partners
• Volunteers
• Staff members
• Board members
• Other community members who are impacted

One of the most important occasions for engaging stakeholders is during the nonprofit strategic planning process. Strategic planning is a time for aligning your teams, adapting to recent changes, and reallocating your resources to set your organization up for lasting success. By checking in with your stakeholders, you can make sure that you reflect their interests in the strategic priorities you establish.

Why Is Stakeholder Engagement Important?

While it takes time and effort to engage stakeholders authentically, doing so can bring a host of benefits to your nonprofit, including:

• Informed decision-making. By tuning into the thoughts and experiences of your stakeholders, you can figure out which initiatives are worth pursuing. For instance, you might have hybrid team members who report feeling disconnected from the rest of your nonprofit. Learning this, you might decide to invest in management training resources to help your managers build more tight-knit, cohesive teams that drive impact.
• Improved programs. Listening to your beneficiaries and other community members allows you to stay on top of their most pressing needs and challenges. For example, they might help you realize that some potential participants find it difficult to access your programs due to language barriers, leading you to make accessibility improvements by hiring bilingual staff or providing on-site translation services.
• Higher Trust. Involving stakeholders in your strategic planning and decision-making processes illustrates that your nonprofit is committed to transparency and accountability. When you demonstrate to donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, and staff that you’re actively listening to their needs and concerns, you can boost your organization’s reputation and forge stronger connections you can count on.

Fulfilling your mission is a community effort. Stakeholder engagement allows you to harness the power of your community and allow them to shape your impact, making them more likely to support your nonprofit every step of the way.

3 Tips for Engaging Your Stakeholders

To encourage honest conversations and feedback from your stakeholders, keep the following tips in mind:

1. Provide multiple ways to share feedback.

To reach as many people as possible, your nonprofit likely conducts outreach and fundraises through multiple channels. The same should apply to your stakeholder engagement activities.

Make it easy for people to participate in the ways they’re most comfortable with by inviting feedback through formats such as:

• One-on-one conversations
• Focus groups
• Town hall meetings
• Online surveys or polls
• Feedback forms

Your stakeholders each have their own preferences when it comes to how they want to engage with your organization, and by presenting them with several options, you can increase the chances they’ll want to participate.

2. Enlist the expert help of a consultant.

The nonprofit sector is no stranger to shifting regulations, fluctuating best practices, and emerging strategies due to advances in technology. To stay at the forefront of these changes, many organizations turn to outside experts who have years of experience and research related to helping nonprofits make their mission a reality.

According to Laridae’s nonprofit consultants guide, there are many ways these professionals can support your organization, including:

• Strategic planning
• Communications
• Governance
• Human resources
• Fundraising
• Equity, diversity, and inclusion
• Finance
• Legal support

A consultant can bring a fresh, unbiased perspective to your strategic planning process and foster deeper, more forthright conversations with your stakeholders. Additionally, they may help you build capacity by training your team on communication and relationship-building strategies that you can apply in the long term.

3. Thank your stakeholders for their input.

Remember that, when your stakeholders share their experiences and feedback, they’re going out of their way to help your nonprofit improve its operations and decision-making. Stakeholder engagement is not a one-and-done effort. Instead, you’ll need to keep lines of communication open and reach out regularly.

Keep your stakeholders engaged by always expressing your appreciation for their input. For example, you might thank your staff members using one of eCardWidget’s employee recognition ideas:

• eCards. Send a prompt, cost-effective thank-you message to all staff members who participated in your engagement sessions. You can make them more eye-catching by adding images or animated GIFs alongside your nonprofit’s logo and colors. Then, personalize each eCard with the recipient’s name and a short summary of the feedback they provided.
• Meals. Hosting a free lunch is an easy way to thank your nonprofit’s staff and strengthen team bonds (just ensure you note any dietary restrictions or preferences in advance). During the meal, take the opportunity to recap all of the feedback you’ve received from stakeholders and how you plan to address it.
• Social media shoutouts. Create social media posts that illustrate how proud and grateful you are for your dedicated staff members. In doing so, you can enhance their professional reputation and increase your nonprofit’s visibility. Just be sure to obtain their permission before featuring their names and images online.

Keep the interests and preferences of your donors, volunteers, staff, and other stakeholders in mind when coming up with your thank-you strategies. As you act on their feedback and suggestions, share periodic updates to keep them in the loop.

Whether you’re planning a fundraising event, seeking partnerships with local businesses, or exploring new giving options to share with donors, gathering input and insights from stakeholders can help steer you toward success. It’ll take time to improve your workflow, but by adopting a gradual improvement mindset, your nonprofit can continuously refine its strategies and programs to deepen its impact year after year.