I.2.01 Stakeholder Analysis – Netway Help System

Evaluation Planning – 2.01 Stakeholder Analysis

The goal of this step is to identify all of the potential people and/or organizations that have a stake in the program and its evaluation and to begin to understand their perspectives on the program and its evaluation. This should be a broad and inclusive brainstorming exercise. The working group should be encouraged to name every possible entity at all levels of the system, from program participants to state and national funding sources. Use of a whiteboard or Post-It® notes are suggested so that the stakeholder names can be physically placed and moved on a diagram. The following questions may help guide the conversation:

Who are the people/types of people who have a stake in the program? Who benefits? Who is responsible for the program? Who takes part in it? Who encounters those who take part in it? Who experiences it indirectly? Whose lives are affected by it? Who has to pay for it? Who has to make decisions about it? Note: Local stakeholders may include the funding agencies, participants, program leaders, parents, administrators, staff, board, local and county government, the press, etc.
Who else cares about the program, or at least the program’s general scope? This refers to people beyond the immediate scope of the program, and could include the community, schools, policy makers, researchers, a potential future funding agency, other organizations with similar or related programs, global issue leaders, etc.

Create a “Map of Stakeholders” – a visual depiction of the stakeholders and their relationship to each other (see Figure 4: Hypothetical Map of Stakeholders). This is an informal map that is designed to show all the key stakeholders or stakeholder groups at a glance. In general the stakeholders most centrally involved with the program should be at the center of the map, and others who are more remotely related should be at the outer circles. You might want to arrange the stakeholders so that similar groups are near each other, but the most important thing is to identify all of the relevant stakeholders and ensure that everyone in the working group is comfortable with the map. There is a blank map in Appendix IV. It is likely you will have to go through several iterations to produce a map that everyone is comfortable with.

Guide the group to consider which aspects of the program each stakeholder is most interested in learning about. It can be helpful for later steps if you record the identified interests of each stakeholder. See the Stakeholder Worksheet in Appendix V.