Stakeholder Mapping: A Tool to Advance Social Change Strategies

To be truly effective, no social change initiative can be all things to all people. Inevitably, there are some people and communities that are impacted more by the status quo and have a deeply personal stake in creating change.

When talking about segmentation, many people think in terms of “audiences.” But at Metropolitan Group we think of people and communities as “stakeholders,” since the creation of sustainable social change requires that they be engaged not as passive recipients, but as active participants in everything. Whether they are private individuals or public officials, stakeholders have agency and a vested interest in the outcome of any social change initiative or enterprise. They also have critical insights on both the problem and its solution. Thus, they should be central to the design and implementation of the solution. And we find that thinking of people and communities as stakeholders results in better and more authentic engagement with them, and ultimately in more effective and sustainable social change efforts.