← Click and drag to navigate →
Welcome to the module 'Identifying and Evaluating Stakeholders'.
In the previous module, we discussed the definitions of engagement, community engagement, and stakeholders.
In this module, we will learn about how to identify and evaluate stakeholders.
[Next Slide]
In the previous module, we looked at the definitions of engagement, community engagement, and stakeholders. If you are starting at this module, and have not reviewed the previous module, I suggest you do that now. Understanding the definitions of those terms is very important and the key to success in stakeholder identification and assessment.
In this module, we’re going to discuss how you can determine who the stakeholders are in your community. We call this a key stakeholder scan. We will also talk about how to assess the stakeholders once you have developed a list.
[Next Slide]
This list of common potential stakeholder categories will help you identify stakeholders in your community. This list is also available to be download it on the course page for this module.
You can scan down this list categories and put some names beside them in the worksheet it is available on the module page.
You may know the people from these different stakeholder categories. For those that you don’t know, you may have to reach out to other people who may be able to identify the stakeholders in your community.
As an example, let’s look at the first category which is government.
[Next Slide]
In Nova Scotia, the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture is a key stakeholder as a regulator. So, you would list the department as a stakeholder, and also list important people to consult within the department.
At the municipal level, there is no regulator. However, members of the council, and particularly the mayor or warden of the municipality, are key players in all economic activity in the community. Having their support is valuable, and if you do not have it, you will have some difficulty moving forward with your project. While they don’t have the authority to reject or accept your project, you should expect that municipal officials will have some influence on the thinking of the provincial officials. They also will be lobbied by people who may oppose your project. It is important that you also communicate with these local politicians.
Let’s look at another category. Local economic groups work to increase economic activity and opportunities for business and jobs to increase local vitality. Often these organizations have a board and membership list. Among those represented are businesses who could be very supportive of your organization effort to start an aquaculture operation, particularly if they see some benefit to their own businesses in selling goods and services to you. On the other hand, some of those members may be concerned that you will be competing with them, or your presence may adversely affect their own businesses and livelihoods.
It is important to identify the people in those organizations you need to engage with. Let’s look at one more category before we move on to how to list the stakeholders. There are often non-governmental organizations, such as environmental groups, who oppose economic (and other) activities that they feel are not environmentally sustainable. It is important to engage with these groups, even if they are completely opposed and do not want to hear from you. It is important to try to engage and document it, even if they turn you down. You may be asked at sometime if you tried to engage with them. It is important to be able to demonstrate that you made the effort.
[Next Slide]
You are looking at a stakeholder tracking sheet. A stakeholder tracking sheet can be downloaded from the web page for this module.
While seeking stakeholders from the list that we were looking at previously we want to record them as we identify them.
I’m going to use some examples from the categories to show how you would fill out the stakeholder tracking sheet. If this point in time we are only going to use the first three columns we’re going to identify the categories the people are the person rather add in the category by title and the contact my name. The other two columns are not going to be used now at the identification stage. However, they will be very important when you are tracking every contact or attempted contact that you have with each of these people. This tracking sheet is very important. We will learn about those last two columns later. Right now, we will focus on getting a list of stakeholders together and putting them in those first three columns.
[Next Slide]
Recognizing the importance of municipal leadership in local communities, our first step is to identify who would be the municipal contact that we would want to engage as a stakeholder. We have determined that we should speak to the Warden, so we record the Warden’s name, Jane Smith (also her contact information like phone and email.)
[Next Slide]
Just as important in this community is the MLA with the provincial government. We look it up and we find out that the MLA his name is Michael Jones and we record that in our stakeholder table.
[Next Slide]
We want to have some engagement with the local business development people. We checked and found that there is not a local Chamber of Commerce, however there is a Regional Development Agency. The executive director of the RDA is Shannon Ayres and we record that in our stakeholder list.
[Next Slide]
We know that environmental issues are going to be brought up with respect to our project, so we want to reach out to environmental groups. EnviroTown is the main environmental group in the community. We make a call to them, and we find out that the best person to deal with is Doug Drake, the Marine Affairs Coordinator.
We add Doug to the stakeholder list.
[Next Slide]
Our operation is proposed to be in a picturesque bay, in view of some of the residents in the area. There is a long list of neighbours, who could be impacted and need to be contacted. One of them is Phyllis Downs, who will also see an increase in traffic due to the operation. We add Phyllis Downs to our stakeholder list.
You get the idea. By going through the different categories in the list of stakeholder types, we are guided to find representatives of each of those categories. When we do, we record them in our stakeholder list. We are not contacting them yet for engagement, we are just making our list.
Before we contact them, we want to assess each of the stakeholders, and develop an approach on how we are going to engage them. Let’s look at a tool that can help us prioritize the stakeholders and how we should conduct individual engagement with them.
[Next Slide]
I dropped the right most two columns of the table to make room for this graphic that is called the Power-Interest grid.
This grid is an important tool to help guide how we are going to engage the stakeholders we have identified. It is also going to help us decide the priority of engagement with them. This will increase our efficiency and effectiveness in engagement. But it also respects their positions and their levels of interest.
Let me explain the Power-Interest Grid.
You will see on the bottom of the grid it says interest and there is an arrow showing from low to high going from left to right. People can be assessed for their level of interest, and they can be placed on the grid.
On the left-hand side of the grid, the Y axis, you’ll see that the arrow goes from low to high levels of power. Again, people can be assessed for their level of power and then be placed on the grid.
Inside those boxes is advice on how to engage with these people.
[Next Slide]
Let’s assess some of these stakeholders. We will start with the warden.
As an elected official, the warden has some power. She doesn’t have direct power in deciding whether or not the project can go ahead, as that is a provincial responsibility. However, she does have indirect power, because as warden she can call the MLA and he will take her call. Warden Smith can voice her opposition or her support for the project directly to the MLA. This indirect power makes the warden an important stakeholder.
It turns out that the warden is not intending to run in the next election, so she is not as interested into this project as she might’ve been if her future was dependent on the opinions of her constituents.
So, the red line indicates how much power the warden has and the blue line indicates the warden’s level of interest. Where they intersect is in the top left quadrant in the “keep satisfied” area. This guidance tells us that we should make sure that the warden is informed and feels respected and is not getting any surprises, but we do not need to manage the engagement closely as we would if her interest was higher and the blue line was further to the right.
[Next Slide]
Let’s take a look at another stakeholder. Doug Drake is the marine affairs coordinator at the local environment group iEnviroTown.
Doug is very concerned about environmental issues and is especially protective of the ocean. He worries about pollution, loss of biodiversity, and the impact on fish stocks.
Doug also has a degree in marine biology, so he understands these issues and has a deep interest in them.
Doug’s interest level is very high, as indicated by the blue line. However, Doug is not in a position to decide on whether the project goes ahead or not. So, the redline shows Doug’s power is relatively low compared to some of the other stakeholders. This is not a knock on Doug or his organization. It is simply a matter of fact.
The intersection of Doug’s high interest but low power falls into the bottom right quadrant. The guidance is to keep Doug informed about this project to feed his interest, however that does not have to be managed as closely as if he was a decision maker. This approach respects interest and his position as far as decisions go.
A good way to engage Doug is to answer any questions promptly and provide him with new information as it arises because he’s going to be interested. However, if Doug is not supportive of the project, not as much time has to be spent with Doug in convincing him of the merits of the project, as he is not in a position to turn it down.
[Next Slide]
That concludes the modules on identifying and evaluating stakeholders.
Next, we are going to talk about engagement options. We will also discuss how to match the engagement options to the stakeholders.
[CONTINUED IN NEXT SECTION]
