How do you balance the needs and interests of different stakeholders in your community?

The most helpful methods to identify stakeholders and their needs in the community are mapping and focus groups. Open dialog and understanding interdependence are key.

In my personal experience, onboarding is the best time to capture relevant information about member motivation, bandwidth, goals, super powers & areas of improvement. Post onboarding, contextual nudges, mapping conversation & event participation to member goals in another way.

An approach I have used successfully is to fully understand what categories stakeholders identify with ie. Nonprofits, retail, service, industry and then to identify the main needs and conflicts in each category through discussion. Usually, through these discussion, an advocate comes forward.

Member power & influence emerges organically, with time. Simply because active engagement & dialogue is what one would map at level one. Initial active members may become dormant, in due time. Hence looking out for interest / competency based power & influence is a good way to identify these folks!

You may be having multiple 1:1 conversations with these stakeholders, rather than a unifying team meeting. If this is the case, it is critical that all the one-off stakeholders are told/shown the list of priorities you've been collecting and how you're organizing & prioritizing the needs. This can be a meeting, but a document that serves as a source of truth is the most important piece. This comes in particularly useful in the negotiation stage, because your stakeholders will have context if their need isn't a top priority. They will have seen that their peer has a more critical need, and it protects you as the decision maker.

The best tool I have are the thinking tools described in the Theory of Constraints and the Theory of Profound Knowledge combined in the Decalogue. These tools are used to surface conflicts and assumptions and apply logical thinking to resolve these conflicts and enable alignment. These tools allow everyone to have a full understanding of the problems, goals, and the strategies to achieve their goals collectivly.

Reaching out 1:1 to have an honest conversation, understand the concerns, truly solving for them within the ambit of the community is a key. Then bringing the relevant stakeholders to the table & getting them to come on the same page & arrive a mutually beneficial situation. Yes, a lot of it comes from just listening, empathy & finding common ground.

Compromise usually involves loss or needs unmet. Instead we employ win win strategies through precision of the word, respect for differing opinions, and agreement on solutions.

Collaboration is easy when all parties fully understand expectations and work together systemically. To collaborate sufficiently a strategic plan outlining objectives and intermediate objectives is necessary.

So while we capture feedback, draw insights & act on it, a cadence is essential. This could be quarterly or bi-annually. Clearly as a community organizers, ambiguity should be welcomed as communities, members, their goals are constantly evolving.