Stakeholders: What is a Stakeholder? What is the Role of a Nonprofit Stakeholder?

What is a Stakeholder? What is the Role of a Nonprofit Stakeholder?

Julianne Shenk

JBS Nonprofit Consulting

November 13, 2015

What is a stakeholder?

In the nonprofit context, a stakeholder is someone who has an interest, investment, or share in an organization and its work/mission.

Who is a stakeholder? Stakeholders are donors, clients, volunteers, employees, board members, partner organizations, and federal/state/county/local agencies. Another important category of stakeholders; the community. The community can contain one or more of the preceding, or be interpreted as the literal community that the nonprofit services.

After identifying your stakeholders, it is recommended to breakdown the groups in to subgroups or subcategories. Subgroups/categories can range from specific interests and priorities, engagement possibilities to stakeholder expectations and contribution (not just monetary contribution).  There are endless subgroups to identify your stakeholders and it is heavily dependent on the type of organization.

The Denver Foundation’s Inclusiveness Project created a worksheet to breakdown the subgroups of stakeholders into Internal Stakeholders and External Stakeholders. Internal stakeholders are already committed to serving your organization as members (i.e., board members, staff, volunteers, donors). External stakeholders are impacted by your work as clients and/or constituents, community partners, et al.

Internal v External Stakeholders

Instructions:

Mark the groups whose perspectives you think will be useful for creating an inclusiveness plan.

Internal Stakeholders

___ Board members

___ Former board members

___ Staff members

___ Former staff members

___ Volunteers

___ Former Volunteers

___ Donors

___ Other

___ Other

External Stakeholders

___ Clients

___ Community partners

___ Members of groups served by our organization who are not accessing our services

___ Leaders of color from nonprofit, public, or private sectors  

___ Other

___ Other [1]

I suggest using the worksheet as an exercise with your board. Identifying the stakeholders of your organization is so very important to your mission’s success. This worksheet can be “tweaked” to fit your organization. Use any/all of the categories mentioned previously in the article. Not every organization is the same, tailor your worksheet to your agency and identify and get to know your stakeholders.

What is the Role of a Nonprofit Stakeholder?

The role of a stakeholder in a nonprofit organization is an important one. Mainly, your stakeholders want your organization to success. Stakeholders are “vital to the development and sustainment of your organization”. [2]

According to Madison Hawthorne, there are three roles for nonprofit stakeholders. One stakeholder can play one or more roles.

·      Support the Nonprofit Organization: This may be by providing a quality service that results in seeing a change. Stakeholders may also contribute to the overall movement of a nonprofit organization by leading or supporting publicity/marketing/advertising campaigns.

·      Influence the Nonprofit Organization

·      Clientele and Volunteers[3]

Stakeholders are an important part of any nonprofit organization. Discover who your organization’s stakeholders are and develop a plan to foster the relationship to make you organization successful!

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[1] Nonprofitinclusiveness.org. The Denver Foundation’s Inclusiveness Project. “Identifying Internal and External Stakeholders”. Denver, CO.

[2] smallbusiness.chron.com. Hawthorne, Madison. Demand Media

[3] Ibid.