Identifying Stakeholders
From EvaluationWiki
All evaluations[1] have multiple stakeholders. A stakeholder is defined as any person or group who has an interest in the project being evaluated or in the results of the evaluation. Stakeholders include funders, project staff and administrators, project participants or customers, community leaders, collaborating agencies, and others with a direct, or even indirect, interest in program effectiveness. For example, stakeholders of a school-based program created to encourage the development of interpersonal and conflict resolution skills of elementary students might include the program’s developers, participating teachers, the school board, school administrators, parents, the participating children, taxpayers, funders, and yes, even the evaluators. It is important to remember that evaluators (whether internal or external) are stakeholders, and not neutral third parties, as we so often think. Evaluators have a vested interest in what they are doing and care about doing it well.
To ensure that you have gathered multiple perspectives about the salient issues,
involve as many stakeholders as possible in initial evaluation discussions.
Otherwise, the evaluation is likely to be designed based on the needs and
interests of only a few stakeholders––usually the ones with the most power––and
may miss other important questions and issues of stakeholders who are not
included at the table.
Of course, involving every stakeholder may not be realistic. However, try to
consult with representatives from as many stakeholder groups as possible when
designing or redesigning the evaluation plan, and provide them with timely results and feedback.We also encourage you to involve a manageable subset of
stakeholder representatives in an evaluation team or task force.This team should
come together, face-to-face if possible, to make ongoing decisions about the
evaluation. Continued use of this team throughout the evaluation process (not
just at the beginning of evaluation design) may help reduce project staff ’s
concerns about evaluation and increase the amount and reliability of information
collected. It will also increase the likelihood that recommendations will be
accepted and implemented.
Although this step may be time-consuming and fraught with the potential for
conflict, it is one well worth the time and effort. Involving many stakeholders
will help ensure that the evaluation process goes more smoothly: more people
are invested and willing to work hard to get the necessary information; project
staff concerns about evaluation are reduced; the information gathered is more
reliable and comes from different perspectives, thus forcing the team to think
through the meaning of contradictory information; and the recommendations
are likely to be accepted by a broader constituency and implemented more fully
and with less resistance.
Example: Program staff of a successful long-term initiative focused on
heightening public awareness about groundwater quality and drinking
water issues created an evaluation team consisting of the project director,
key staff members, and the local evaluator. Early in the process of
developing an evaluation plan, the team realized that it needed
information and input from additional “outside” stakeholders, particularly
representatives from local governments, such as staff from the local
utilities departments, building departments, planning commissioners, as
well as key elected officials.These stakeholders, although not directly
involved in the implementation of the project, were critical players in
terms of influencing policy related to groundwater quality, as well as
increasing awareness and problem solving with the community around
decision making that might affect groundwater drinking quality.
These stakeholders also provided a unique perspective to the team.They
were going to be the ones most immediately affected by project staff ’s
work, and were the ones best able to work with project staff to test
questions and determine strategic action steps. In addition, the evaluation
plan focused primarily on gathering information from these outside
stakeholders; therefore, representatives from these groups needed to be a
part of the discussions regarding data collection processes and structures.
What was the best way to reach local government representatives?
Initially, staff decided to expand the primary evaluation team to include
representatives from these additional stakeholder groups. However, it
quickly became apparent that including everyone would make the
evaluation team too large to operate effectively. In addition, calls to these
potential representatives revealed another problem. Although many of the
stakeholders contacted were interested in participating and providing
their input, they were concerned when they learned about the level of
effort and time commitment that would be required of them, given their
already busy schedules. Being public officials, most of them had many
roles to fill, including multiple committee appointments and other
meetings, which went beyond their regular work hours. It did not seem
feasible that these stakeholders could manage biweekly, or even monthly,
evaluation team meetings.
However, instead of giving up and foregoing the important input from
these stakeholders (as is often the case with project-level evaluations that
involve multiple “outside” stakeholders), project staff decided to create a
second ad hoc team made up of approximately 20 representatives from
these stakeholder groups.This team was brought together at certain
critical points in the process to provide feedback and input to the
primary evaluation team. Specifically, they were brought together two to
three times per year for roundtable discussions around particular
evaluation topics, and to provide input into next steps for the program
and its evaluation. An added benefit of these roundtables was that local
representatives from multiple communities were able to problem solve
together, learn from one another, and create a network of peers around
groundwater issues—strengthening the program itself, as well as the
evaluation component.
In addition, the primary evaluation team called on five representatives
from these outside stakeholder groups on a more frequent basis for input
into evaluation and programmatic questions and issues. In this way, the
project was able to benefit from input from a wider variety of
perspectives, while making participation in the evaluation a manageable
process for all those involved.
Things To Remember
- Gathering input from multiple stakeholders helps you remain aware of the many levels of interest related to the project. You and your evaluation team will be better prepared to counteract pressure from particular stakeholders for quick fixes or a rush to judgment when that is not what is best for the project.
- Stakeholders will have different, sometimes even contradictory, interests and views.They also hold different levels of power. Project directors have more power than staff. Legislators have more power than primary-grade students.Your funders have a particular kind of power. Ask yourself: Which stakeholders are not being heard in this process? Why not? Where can we build consensus and how can we prioritize the issues?
- Evaluators are stakeholders, too.What are their interests? How might this affect how the evaluation is designed, which questions are focused on, and what interpretations are made?
References
- ↑ Evaluation Handbook , W.K. Kellogg Foundation (PDF)
