Understanding and managing stakeholders is a fundamental first step in any social value project. Stakeholders are the individuals, groups, or organisations who are affected by or can affect your project. Setting up your stakeholders correctly is essential, as every outcome in your project must be allocated to a stakeholder.

Viewing Stakeholder Information

– Use the ‘Stakeholders’ tab to view your main stakeholder groups

– Use the ‘Subgroups’ tab to view subgroups if stakeholders

– Select ‘All’ to see both stakeholders and subgroups in one view

The tables will show numbers  of stakeholders – this will reflect the currently selected reporting period. If the reporting period is changed, the numbers will be updated accordingly.

 

Understanding Stakeholder Structure

Social Value Manager uses a two-tier structure for stakeholders:

  1. Main stakeholder groups (e.g., Participants, Government, Community Providers)
  2. Subgroups within these main stakeholders (e.g., specific participant groups or teams)

 

Creating Stakeholders

  1. Navigate to your project and select ‘Stakeholders’ from the sidebar
  2. Click the ‘Create New’ button
  3. Enter the stakeholder name
  4. Choose how to define the number of stakeholders:

   – Enter a specific number directly

   – Use existing project data by selecting from available metrics

 

Creating Stakeholder Subgroups

  1. Go to the ‘Subgroups’ tab
  2. Click ‘Create New’
  3. Select the parent stakeholder group
  4. Enter the subgroup name
  5. Define the number of people using one of two methods:

   – Absolute Numbers: Enter the exact number of people in the subgroup

   – Proportional: Specify a percentage of the parent group (this will automatically update if the parent group numbers change). Proportions should be entered as a decimal – e.g. 50% should be entered as 0.5

 

Editing stakeholders

Stakeholders can be edited in much the same way as they are created.

  1. Find the stakeholder or subgroup you wish to edit
  2. Click the edit button
  3. Update the necessary information
  4. Click ‘Update’ to save changes

 

 Deleting Stakeholders

– Use the delete function to remove any unnecessary stakeholder groups or subgroups

– Be careful about deleting stakeholders that may be connected to outcomes

 

Best practice

– Set up your stakeholders before creating outcomes

– Use proportional numbers for subgroups when you want them to automatically update with changes to the main stakeholder group

– Regularly review stakeholder numbers across different reporting periods to ensure accuracy

– Consider using project data metrics where available to maintain consistency