Knowing who to contact
It is important to think through who you may need to contact and what might be the best way to involve people. This doesn’t need to be a daunting task. An approach called ‘stakeholder analysis’ provides a manageable process:
- List down the various groups or individuals who would have an interest in the issue
- For each group or individual consider what they would be concerned about with regard to the issue. For example, on the issue of improving local child care, child care operators may be concerned about the financial viability of the service whereas parents would be concerned about the standard of care
- Make an estimate of how concerned different groups or individuals would be — very concerned through to not concerned at all
- Consider what influence different groups would have over the project — high, medium or low
- Given all of these considerations, what level of involvement would be most appropriate for each group — inform, consult, involve or empower?
- Finally, identify the best way to achieve the desired level of involvement for each group or individual you identified — eg individual discussions, newsletters, public meetings etc.
Extra resources
- There are several variations of the stakeholder analysis approach, but a good description can be found at the Southern Cross University site.
