Define Your Stakeholders
Determining impact is a complex matter, involving many stakeholders. Before you move on to determining the impact question, it is a good warm-up to map out your stakeholders in advance. We listed two methods below. You can use them according to your own preference, or depending on the overview you want to have of your stakeholders.Â
Stakeholder Matrix
- List the stakeholders who are important to achieving your impact goal.
- Consider how much power/influence they have to help realise your goal, and how much interest they have shown so far. Place each stakeholder in the power-interest matrix.
- For each stakeholder, note how they will be involved.
Sphere of Influence versus Sphere of Ambition
The activities and interventions of your own organisation have a certain scope, called the sphere of influence. It is helpful to map out the scope of this influence in advance, as well as to check to what extent it coincides with the sphere of impact.
Which potential partners can extend the sphere of influence of your organisation into the desired impact sphere? How can you reach and engage these potential partners?
Social change comes about through people. It is determined by relationships and the cooperation of actors. That’s why we put the actors (people, groups, organisations, agencies, etc.) in society at the centre of planning, monitoring and measuring impact.