Information
Summary: Emphasizes the importance of understanding stakeholders' interests, influence, and involvement in project planning and implementation to ensure their needs are addressed.
Learning Objectives:
Stakeholders in the projects are actors, individuals (target group), organizations, institutions at local, regional, national, international levels directly or indirectly affected by the activities that you will carry out (Aaltonen, K., & Sivonen, R. 2009, p.132). Stakeholders are essential part of a Project. Therefore, it is important to make a proper analysis before preparing your proposal. It is important to identify your stakeholders and partners while you are preparing the rationale part of the proposal. The most effective, important and key actors/institutions/organizations should be identified.
You can split stakeholder analysis into two components: Beneficiaries and Consortium Partners
Beneficiaries can be examined under two categories:
Target Group(s): Project target group(s) is (are) directly and positively affected by activities at Project purpose level. Workers from consortium partners can be also included to target group(s). (EU Commission, 2004, p.62)
Final Beneficiaries: Final beneficiaries are also people that will benefit from the Project activities. However, the difference from the target group(s) is that they will be affected in the long term. For example, if you implement a Project aiming for promoting social entrepreneurship in an area and you are directly supporting 50 potential entrepreneurs, those 50 potential entrepreneurs are in your target group. Once the Project activities ended and those entrepreneurs started their businesses, unemployment in the area will be started to reduce, economy will flourish to a certain degree, social problems will be reduced.
While you are identifying your final beneficiaries, it is important to be realistic and objective. You should make a good analysis with tangible and specific objectives. If you expect an impact in a specific area and time, you should state it in your proposal elaborately. You should justify your estimation / expectation by stating your methodology and the way of thinking. The impact on the final beneficiaries should be verified from objective sources. For example, if your Project activities reduce the employment in a specific area and time, this result can be verified from local statistics.
Consortium Partners: Proposal writers should contact with them and held meetings. Since these organizations are involved with the Project thematic area, they may provide a better perspective and approach to the Project. They can significantly contribute the activity design, methodology, implementation parts of the Project. They also are in contact with the target group, so it is possible to create a more comperehensive needs analysis by benefiting from their deeper understanding with the target group. Also, it can be easier and more effective to reach the target group(s) via these organizations.
In line with the call for proposals document, your partners can be (the list is not exhausted):
- Non-formal youth groups,
- Municipalities, local administrations, public administrations,
- Universities, schools, education centers,
- Non-governmental organizations, associations, foundations, unions,
- Private institutions, companies,
- Umberella organizations, national/international networks.
Most of the call for proposals restrict the number of partners in a Project. This makes sense, because the more partners you have the more management load you will have. Usually, the number of partners is in line with the scope (therefore budget) of the programme. So, it is important for proposal writers to select most effective and suitable partners for the Project.
One of the most common mistakes is selecting a partner due to having a good relationship with it. While knowing and having a good cooperation with an institution/actor ensure a stable functioning of the Project, it may reduce the potential / impact of the activities.
