It is critically important to know that the actions taken with stakeholders have led to a tangible – and preferably measurable – improvement, as this allows success to be repeated and helps to demonstrate the return on investment that the communication function continues to deliver.
As with all communications, it is vital to evaluate activities throughout the course of the stakeholder engagement – it is not a task that is conducted exclusively at the end of a project. Through evaluation, an NSI can ensure it is meeting its objectives, targets and engaging with the right stakeholders to advance its strategy.
4.1 The art of evaluation
Determining the efficacy of stakeholder relationships can be an inexact science so, to overcome this, communications teams should consider using a complementary suite of quantitative and qualitative measures.
Quantitative metrics can be easily gathered using surveys and scoring mechanisms that allow benchmarks to be established and targets set. Other simple metrics to display are the number of stakeholders influenced, engagements surrounding social media activity, and the amount of media coverage that contained a stakeholder’s quote.
These should then be supplemented with the elements that simply cannot be presented in a dashboard or chart, for example the facets that cannot be counted, such as crises mitigated, goodwill extended and general advocacy. It is the communications team’s responsibility to combine these measures into an evaluation that is actionable and allows future decisions to be made, using a solid evidence base. Wherever possible, there should be an explicit focus on the power of communications’ interventions.
A common approach to presenting this information in a useful format is to use a supporting narrative. This should tell the story behind any data that has been achieved and be the vital context in understanding an outcome. The following questions can be used to inform this narrative’s production:
- Did the NSI achieve what it wanted to – namely its primary objective – and can communications demonstrate that it met its objectives?
- What role did stakeholders have in helping to achieve this objective?
- Is there evidence of a better two-way dialogue with key stakeholders, consequently improving an NSI’s ability to listen to external views and identify and mitigate risks to stakeholder support?
- Is better reputation measurement now available, allowing an NSI to track how it is performing with its planned engagements with stakeholders?
- Has the volume of engagements increased and why?
- Is there anecdotal evidence of improved support and advocacy? Do external organizations now know an NSI’s story?
- Could better policy emerge because of early engagement with stakeholders and listening to their views?
- Is there feedback from stakeholders about what has worked well and what has been learned for future activities?
4.2 Lessons learned
Using this information, recommendations for effective relationship management in future can be made. Although every campaign is different, there are often similar points of failure and common requirements for future engagements. These can often include:
- Ensuring that there is a maintained database or contact sheet for all stakeholders involved in the project, especially if evidence suggests that not everyone was reached appropriately or at the right time.
- Nominating a relationship lead and/or a primary contact. This relationship lead should have overall responsibility for stakeholder activity and will be responsible for relationship building. This is especially important if feedback suggests stakeholders have struggled to find a route in to an NSI.
- Ensuring that stakeholder management is a regular agenda point and that updates are expected during routine reporting. Remember: evaluation is not simply a concluding activity.
- Installing a process to maximize good practice and rapidly resolve conflict.
- Running a culture change programme to remind all employees that stakeholder engagement is a constant, proactive part of an NSI’s business and not just done in their free time.
- Determining which stakeholders need to be more actively involved than others.
Increasing the transparency of feedback on progress with an NSI’s plans. For example, if stakeholders were asked for feedback, it could be powerful to acknowledge their feedback and outline what an NSI is doing in response.