Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
The most effective, influential nonprofits are those that share the power to shape their strategies and approaches with their stakeholders, especially the people who benefit directly from their programs and services (their beneficiaries). They’re also the organizations that recognize that sharing power doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing pursuit, and that the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good.
In our recent consulting work with some of America’s top charities, we’ve been piloting a progressive model for sharing power, which acknowledges the fact that most organizations can’t share all their decision making with their beneficiaries, nor would their beneficiaries want that sort of responsibility. Instead, organizations can offer a range of opportunities for their beneficiaries (and other non-staff and board stakeholders, like volunteers and community members) to get involved in shaping their work, from light touch information-oriented engagements, to collaborations, to true empowerment to make strategic decisions.
We call this model (which is based on the International Association for Public Participation’s research-backed Spectrum for Public Participation) The Shared Power Spectrum. Like the Spectrum for Public Participation, it suggests a progressive continuum of increasing influence on decisions, in which nonprofits move from one-way engagement with their stakeholders (where stakeholders provide input and a nonprofit responds), to two-way, deliberative engagement (where a nonprofit works hand-in-hand with its stakeholders in a sustained manner to shape solutions). Here’s a closer look, as well as several ideas for ways you can engage your beneficiaries and other stakeholders at every point in the spectrum in order to create realistic, accessible opportunities to share power.
The Five Modes in the Shared Power Spectrum
Inform
The first stop in most organizations’ journey toward Shared Power is informing their beneficiaries or other stakeholders. After all, you can’t expect your stakeholders to be able to make sound decisions until they understand the issues at hand. That’s why organizations that are dedicated to sharing power first create strategies for communicating with their beneficiaries and other stakeholders on an ongoing basis about the problems they exist to address and the work they’re doing to bring about solutions.
For example, imagine you run a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring everyone has a decent place to live, which builds affordable homes and helps people with limited financial resources access housing. In the “Inform” mode of the Shared Power Spectrum, you might create an email newsletter, Facebook group and regular series of YouTube videos intended for people experiencing housing insecurity in which you provide information about the affordable housing crisis, its root causes, and the various programs and services your organization offers to address it. You might have similar ongoing communication channels for other stakeholders as well, such as volunteers or community members. Through these ongoing communication channels, your stakeholders will build a foundational understanding of the problems your organization exists to address, and the work you’re currently doing to solve them. It is only with this foundational understanding in place that stakeholders can begin to effectively consult on and become involved in your organization’s day-to-day work and decision making.
Of course, someone who has lived experience with homelessness understands “the problem” on a very personal level, but there is a good chance that same person does not have a strong handle on data about on its root causes, prevalence across different geographies, its impact by race and ethnicity, and other important details that your organization can share more about. This broader, contextual information provides a solid starting point from which your stakeholders can begin to become more deeply involved in collaboration and decision making.
Goal: To provide beneficiaries and other stakeholders with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding our organization’s cause, the problems we’re working to solve and potential solutions.
Promise to stakeholders: We will keep you informed.
Example Initiatives: Ongoing communication with beneficiaries and other stakeholders, such as email newsletters, social media communities, and informational meetings.
Consult
Once you’re effectively and consistently informing your stakeholders about the problems your organization exists to solve and the solutions you are exploring, you can begin to consult them to inform those solutions. The “Consult” mode of the Shared Power spectrum is all about getting input from your stakeholders that can influence your organization’s work. As such, this mode is largely a one-way engagement, in which stakeholders provide input and ideas, and your organization responds by changing the way it works (adding a new program or service, improving an existing one etc.), or not. Organizations may circle back with their stakeholders in the “Consult” mode to show or tell them how their input influenced decisions, but decision making still lies in the hands of staff and board members in this mode, not with beneficiaries or other stakeholders.
In this mode on the spectrum, the same affordable housing nonprofit I mentioned as an example in “Inform” may conduct an annual survey with individuals experiencing housing insecurity to learn more about their housing needs and challenges. They might conduct focus groups or listening sessions with these same folks to find out how they might react to a new program the organization is trying to launch. And they might circle back with these folks to tell them what they learned from these engagements and what they’re doing as a result of those learnings.
Key initiatives in the “Consult” mode of the Shared Power Spectrum often look like traditional, one-off stakeholder research: surveys, focus groups, listening sessions etc. Story gathering is another common (but often overlooked) initiative that fits within the “Consult” mode because it does more than provide fodder for marketing and communications; it helps organizations understand the lived experiences of the people they serve.
Goal: To obtain beneficiary and other stakeholder feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions.
Promise to Stakeholders: We will keep you informed, listen to and acknowledge concerns and aspirations, and provide feedback on how your input influences our decisions.
Example Initiatives: One-way or one-off inquiries with beneficiaries and other stakeholders, such as surveys, focus groups, listening sessions, polls; stakeholder story gathering.
Involve
As we get into the “Involve” mode in the Shared Power Spectrum, shaping solutions begins to become a more participatory, two-way process where nonprofits work hand-in-hand with their beneficiaries and their stakeholders. Here, we see organizations work directly with their beneficiaries over a sustained time period to ensure their concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered. Organizations don’t get input just once and then go off and respond. Instead, they “keep their heads together” with stakeholders as they explore solutions, and get continual feedback as they go.
In keeping with the affordable housing nonprofit example, here, the organization might host a quarterly town hall for people experiencing housing insecurity where they share what they’re working on currently and in turn get feedback and input from their beneficiaries. Many of the same folks might attend these town halls each quarter, and as such, join the organization on their journey, provide input as their solutions continue to evolve, and see how their input influences the organization’s work. However, this mode is distinct from “Collaborate” and “Empower” in that the nonprofit holds the power to pick and choose which stakeholder input to respond to, and to make the ultimate decisions.
Goal: To work directly with beneficiaries and other stakeholders through the process to ensure that their concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered.
Promise to Stakeholders: We will work with you to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and provide feedback on how your input influenced the decision.
Example Initiatives: Two-way or recurring opportunities for stakeholders to provide input and see its influence on decisions, such as town halls, summits and research communities.
Collaborate
In the fourth mode of the Shared Power Spectrum, nonprofits begin to truly “Collaborate” with their stakeholders to shape their solutions, strategies, programs, services, and work. Like the “Involve” mode, the “Collaborate” mode involves two-way, participatory processes for engaging stakeholders. But in “Collaborate”, it’s not just about the nonprofit staying in community with stakeholders and getting continual feedback as they go. It’s about shaping solutions together. Here, we see nonprofits promising to incorporate stakeholder advice and opinions in solutions to the maximum extent possible. This typically requires deep sustained engagement mechanisms like a stakeholder advisory panel where beneficiaries can advise on a specific project, or a stakeholder advisory board where beneficiaries are engaged in many of the same ways as a governing board, through regular meetings and committees, opportunities to vote on new initiatives and more.
Thinking again about the affordable housing nonprofit, the organization may form a stakeholder advisory board made up of individuals who have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity within the last five years, and meet with that group on a bimonthly basis to discuss work in progress, get ideas and input, and work through shaping solutions together.
While the folks on a stakeholder board may not have ultimate decision making power, the organization makes an express promise to center their feedback and input in decision making, and to put their priorities above (or at least on equal footing to) those of board members, donors or other non-beneficiary stakeholders.
Goal: To partner with beneficiaries and other stakeholders in each aspect of a decision, including the development of alternatives and the identification of the preferred solutions.
Promise to Stakeholders: We will look to you for advice and innovation in formulating solutions, and incorporate your advice and recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.
Example Initiatives: Sustained opportunities for beneficiaries and others stakeholders to collaborate with staff on solutions and initiatives, such as: stakeholder advisory panels or stakeholder boards.
Empower
“Empower” is the fifth and final mode in the Shared Power Spectrum, and it’s the gold standard when it comes to sharing power. That said, it should be thought of as a destination that most nonprofits must build toward, not a starting point in the Shared Power journey.
In the “Empower” mode, the nonprofit places the ultimate decision making power in the hands of its beneficiaries or other stakeholders (like volunteers or community members). Most often, this happens when a nonprofit recruits current or former beneficiaries into paid staff or governing board roles. Happily, we’re seeing more and more organizations think about beneficiary representation on their boards and staff teams, but this kind of representation is not without challenges.
In keeping with the housing insecurity nonprofit example I’ve used throughout this article, the organization may struggle to recruit folks currently experiencing housing insecurity into board roles simply because their life circumstances don’t currently allow time for such involvement. Offering a paid staff role to an individual experiencing housing insecurity can in itself provide a solution (at least for that person on an individual level). The nonprofit could also think about recruiting those who are no longer experiencing housing insecurity, but have in the recent past. The idea here is to put the power to make decisions into the hands of those who are ultimately impacted by the organization’s work, or those who can be closely representative of the priorities and needs of those end beneficiaries.
Goal: To place final decision making in the hands of beneficiaries and other stakeholders.
Promise to Stakeholders: We will implement what you decide.
Example Initiatives: Intentional recruitment of beneficiaries and other stakeholders into the staff and/or board roles at the nonprofit organization.
On the surface, “Empowering” nonprofit beneficiaries might seem like a no-brainer. After all, most nonprofits are set up with the express goal of changing peoples’ lives for the better. Why not put those people in a position to make the decisions that will benefit them? But as any nonprofit that has tried to share power knows, it’s not as straightforward as it might sound. You can’t simply expect your average beneficiary to be able to participate in every decision your nonprofit makes (nor would most want to). By thinking about a range of beneficiary engagement opportunities your nonprofit can offer across each mode in this spectrum, you can begin to build a healthy ecosystem of input, influence and Shared Power around your nonprofit’s strategies, approaches, decisions and work.
How can I use the Shared Power Spectrum?
If these ideas appeal to you, a great place to begin is mapping your organization’s current initiative to the spectrum using the worksheet below. Then, identify gaps, and begin exploring new beneficiary/stakeholder engagement initiatives that could fill them.
Shared Power Spectrum Worksheet for Nonprofits
Use this worksheet to map your current stakeholder engagement initiatives and identify gaps.
For example, even if you don’t think of your organization as a Shared Power Nonprofit, there’s a good chance you’re regularly engaging your beneficiaries through a Facebook community, an annual survey, or existing events.
However, these sorts of initiatives all fall toward the left of the Shared Power Spectrum. Seeing that pattern might inspire you to begin to think about what it would look like to begin to build opportunities to collaborate with and empower your beneficiaries and other stakeholders, and spark conversations about how you can continue to build Shared Power approaches into your work.
It’s important to think about each mode in the Spectrum as leading to the next, and as such, to think about your stakeholder engagement as a journey. Ideally, stakeholders will move from lighter engagement opportunities toward the left of the spectrum to deeper, more sustained opportunities toward the right.
We have a whole lot more content and ideas coming on bringing the Shared Power philosophy to life at your nonprofit later this year, so stay tuned! In the meantime, we’d love to hear: how are you sharing power with your nonprofit’s stakeholders? What challenges are you facing?
