1. CHNA 20 Multi-year Grant Technical Assistance June 17, 2015
Identifying and Engaging Stakeholders

2. Identifying Key Stakeholders
Stakeholders are collaborators in the broadest sense
The right mix of engaged stakeholders can actively affect how you frame your goals and contribute to a shared vision of change
Collaborative partners are only one kind of stakeholder
Long-term public health change requires broad support
Stakeholders must represent a variety of segments
Ongoing engagement is critical to success

3. Stakeholder Segmentation
Stakeholders can be found in 5 key segments of community:
Your project’s Users and Beneficiaries
Family Members
Neighborhood Context
Ex. Advocacy groups, community members, elected officials
Connections
Ex. Community services, systems, decision makers who can affect program sustainability/continuation
Operations
Staff/program management, funders, coalition members, people and programs who are doing this work in other communities

4. Prioritization: Which Stakeholders Should We Approach First?
Select representation from each segment to create a well-rounded group
Does this stakeholder increase our authority or credibility?
Do or can they have ongoing responsibilities for implementation of project activities/ideals?
Do they or will they advocate for our desired change?
Can they authorize changes/improvements to our project?
Do they or will they provide funding?
Do they or can they authorize the continuation or expansion of our project in the long term?

5. The Four Key Pillars of Stakeholder Work
How are we Strengthening Our Beneficiaries
Through providing improved resources and supports?
How are we Connecting Our Beneficiaries
To both formal and informal helping systems?
How are we Building Local Capacity
To address long-term goals?
How are we Increasing Indicators of Well-Being
Across all stakeholder segments?

6. Assessing Stakeholder Readiness for Change
Conditions: This stakeholder does/does not have the right resources and conditions to offer support for our project.
Attitudes: This stakeholder does/does not have the right attitudes and motivations to commit to useful long-term change.
Resources: This stakeholder does/does not have a viable pathway to access human capital and materials necessary to support our project.

7. Stakeholder Readiness: Conditions
Conditions = Laws/Structures/Systems Required to Support Your Vision of Change
What structures/systems already exist to either support or inhibit this change?
How well is this stakeholder positioned to support our vision of change at a system or policy level?
What “job description” would this stakeholder have in support of the work we are trying to achieve?

8. Stakeholder Readiness: Attitudes
Attitudes = The Vision of a Different Future and the Commitment to Achieve it
What factors in the environment will either enable or inhibit this stakeholder in working towards change?
What kind of culture and motivation exist within the stakeholder/organization and immediate networks?
Does this stakeholder share our vision of long-term change?

9. Stakeholder Readiness: Resources
Resources = Access to Physical, Financial, and Human Resources Necessary to Facilitate Our Vision of Change
What external resources can this stakeholder access to help support our vision of change?
Does this stakeholder have all the tools and resources necessary to implement their “job description” in our project?
Does this stakeholder have the skills and knowledge necessary for them to successfully complete their “job description?”

10. Engaging Stakeholders Meaningfully
Continuous Engagement = A Healthy Project
True Engagement involves a shared perspective
Engaging stakeholders requires an effective communication plan
Clear expectations and boundaries are key to positive engagement
Incentives, recognitions, rewards can be useful tools in keeping stakeholder relationships positive
The experiences of each stakeholder should become a part of your evaluation process

11. Engaging Stakeholders Meaningfully
Stakeholder Interests Inform Project Goals
What aspects of our long-term goal matter most to each of our stakeholders?
Can we frame milestones and short-term project goals to match their needs and interests?
How can we meaningfully engage each stakeholder to assist us in achieving developmental change milestones?
What is our plan for gathering continuous stakeholder input?
What level of regular participation can we reasonably ask of stakeholders across each segment?

12. Engaging Stakeholders Meaningfully
Consultation
Being Informed
Being Asked
Engagement
Commenting on Decisions
Developing Solutions
Delivering Services
Slide adapted from Community Planning Toolkit, Community Places, scdc.org

13. CHNA 20 Multi-year Grant Technical Assistance June 17, 2015
Theory of Change

14. Theory of Change Models (TOC)
A theory of change is like a road map
Helps plot journey from where we are now to where we want to be
Links outcomes and activities to explain HOW and WHY the desired change is expected to come about
A framework for strategic planning, dialogue and monitoring
Helps answer the questions:
What is the change we are working toward?
What do we need to do for the change to come about?
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

15. Theory of Change Models (TOC)
A plausible theory of change helps organizations understand how their work and their relationships are contributing to complex, long term social change.
Contribution to a comprehensive solution, rather than bringing about solutions alone.
It provides a clear framework within which programs can
plan their activities,
conduct their stakeholder dialogue,
learn and communicate their success.
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

16. Multi-year Grant Program TOC will
Identify and explain mini-steps to take in order to achieve realistic/achievable long term goals.
Demonstrate how you will measure your progress and contribution to long term change.
Ensure your ability to concentrate on the short term and measurable goals while not losing sight of your ultimate destination.
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

17. What is a Good Theory of Change?
Should be Plausible
Do evidence and common sense suggest that activities, if implemented, will lead to desired outcomes?
Should be Doable
Will the economic, technical, political, institutional, and human resources be available to carry out the initiative?
Should be Testable
Is the theory of change specific and complete enough for reviewers to track its progress
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

18. Steps to Create a Theory of Change
Identify a long-term goal.
Conduct “backwards mapping” to identify the preconditions necessary to achieve that goal.
Identify the interventions that your initiative will perform to create these preconditions.
Develop indicators for each precondition that will be used to assess the performance of the interventions.
Write a narrative that can be used to summarize the various moving parts in your theory
Adapted from

19. Step 1: Creating a ‘vision of success’
Purpose
To generate an initial statement of a long-term “vision of success” or goal for the CHNA 20 funded program that is plausible, achievable and measurable.
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

20. What would you like the world to remember you for?
What should be on your epitaph/gravestone?
If you read this on a gravestone, would you stop and want to know more?
Is it powerful and snappy enough to be on a grave stone?
Does it really say what you’d like to be remembered for?
Does it match what your program/collaborative really accomplished?
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

21. Our Program Epitaph Milton NAMI QCAP
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

22. Describe Success
Now try to imagine and describe what success would look like for you as a program, if
You had all the resources you needed
There were no major issues to derail you from your path.
If the visitor who was fascinated by your epitaph went to visit your community, what would you want them to see?
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

23. Our vision of success or Goal Statement
program
Collaborators first
staff & collaborators understand and
Adapted from The Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations, 7th Edition. Peter M. Ginter.Chapter 5 - Directional Strategies, page 165 – 204, March 2013, Jossey-Bass.

24. Developing Short & Long Term Results/Outcomes
Imagine you are flying above your the community in a helicopter 1 year, 2 years, 3 years from now.
What changes will you see on the ground if you have been completely successful in implementing your program and appropriately spending your funds?
Think of “changes” as outcomes or results.
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

25. Determining Changes Ask yourself:
How have relationships changed between people, groups and institutions?
What new relationships have been formed?
What new opportunities exist for whom?
How have you as a program or organization changed?
How has your role changed?
What material conditions have changed in the lives of your beneficiaries and stakeholders?
To what extent have they become active participants in their own development rather than just ‘beneficiaries’?
What has changed in their ‘environment’?
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

26. Developing Year 1 Outcome Statements
Based on brainstorm develop some outcomes
Outcomes: a changed situation that can be described and measured.
Is this plausible/realistic for your team to accomplish in Year 1?
Is this measurable?
What evidence will tell you that you have succeeded?
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

27. What changes have to happen for your vision of success to be realized?
Brainstorm all the preconditions that you can think of that are NECESSARY for the long term change to take place.
Preconditions and indicators must be specific and describe
What?
For Whom?
How many?
How good?
By when?
Group ideas into broadly related groups
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

28. Year 1 Primary Precondition
Define ONE primary precondition that captures the main ideas of the group (hand-out).
Is your primary preconditions plausible, achievable and measurable?
Is there a clear, logical link between the pre-condition and the long-term outcome?
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

29. Mapping the Secondary Preconditions
All other preconditions may be secondary preconditions of the primary outcome.
Arrange these secondary preconditions to create a flow chart of clear, logically linked outcomes leading to the primary precondition of your group (hand-out).
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

30. Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

31. Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

32. Clear Indicators of Success
An indicator should describe what you would see on the ground upon completion of year, 1, year 2, year 3 - if the program had been successful.
Changes in conditions (eg access to water, greater safety, etc)
Changes in behavior (eg people conserving resources, being more responsive, etc)
Changes in relationships (collaborations, power)
Changes in capabilities (better able to solve problems)
Changes in opportunities (more equitable access to opportunities)
Slides adapted from Keystone Corporation. Developing a Theory of Change: A Framework for Accountability and Learning for Social Change, A Keystone Guide,

33. Create your own TOC – On-line Tools
Use one of these two tools, develop and submit by next TA in September

34. Questions?