Success

SECURING STORY
social acceptance
A step-by-step guide to building a
stakeholder engagement plan

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Table of Contents
Why engage stakeholders? / 4
The shift toward meaningful engagement

The 3 pillars of stakeholder engagement / 6

The continuous cycle of stakeholder engagement

Steps in building a stakeholder engagement plan / 9

Putting your plan into action / 26

If you need help / 29

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Securing social acceptance - 2019
Why
engage
stakeholders?
Even before your project or operations are up
and running, stakeholders are influencing its
outcome. They all have the potential to speed up,
slow down or completely obstruct your progress to
varying degrees. They can also be extremely useful
advocates, sponsors and agents of change.
Whether you realize it or not, you are
constantly building relationships with
stakeholders - from boards of directors and
government agencies to environmental groups
and local communities – not to mention lending
institutions, industry regulators and even internal
staff.
The more your project depends on stakeholder
acceptance, the more important it is to take a
proactive and strategic approach to stakeholder
engagement.
This guide offers a step-by-step approach for
building an effective stakeholder engagement plan
and increasing your chances of successful project
delivery. This process begins by approaching
stakeholder engagement just like you would any
other business function – one that needs to be
carefully managed.

The shift toward
meaningful engagement
Until only recently, stakeholder management
was widely viewed as simply another form of risk
management and often consisted of a one-time
set of public consultations typically around the
environmental and social assessment process.
Efforts rarely extended in any meaningful way
beyond the project planning phase. Nor were
they integrated into core business activities
or measured in terms of their effectiveness in
building constructive working relationships.
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The emerging approach to stakeholder
engagement is much broader, reflecting a more
inclusive and continuous process that spans the
entire project lifecycle. Beyond recognizing the
business and reputational risks that come from
poor stakeholder relations, this new approach
places a growing emphasis on corporate
social responsibility, transparency
and reporting.
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The 3 pillars
of stakeholder Plan
engagement
The first step in any successful venture is having a
good plan. The more impact your project potentially
has on stakeholders, the more important this
planning becomes. (figure a.) Measure Engage
A stakeholder engagement plan won’t guarantee
your social license to operate, but it will give
Figure a.
you a huge head start. Obviously, you can’t plan
it all. Incidents occur. So do natural disasters
and economic crises. But a solid stakeholder Reality In an ideal world, projects would keep all
engagement plan will improve relations with stakeholders happy at all times. In the real world,
stakeholders – making it easier to weather balance needs to be struck between prioritizing
unplanned events and even crises. project objectives and stakeholder needs. A good
stakeholder plan can help you do just that.
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the quality of your
The continuous cycle of relationships with
stakeholder engagement them.

The initial purpose

A stakeholder engagement plan is not static.
of a stakeholder
Nor is it meant to be. It should be constantly
plan is to provide a
reviewed and revised as your project
solid footing from
progresses. (figure b.)
which to initiate your

Think of stakeholder engagement more as engagement activities

an upward spiral that becomes increasingly – all carefully planned

focused as you work your way toward and executed in line

successful project delivery. Things will with overall company

evolve over the project’s lifespan. Certain objectives.

issues and grievances will be gradually

resolved. Others may suddenly arise. Even
Figure b.
your project affected people (PAP) and
key stakeholders may change. So may
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THE 10 STEPS OF BUILDING A

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PLAN

PLAN ANNOUNCEMENT FEEDBACK

Assess project
Identify Define
issues, risks &
stakeholders objectives
opportunities

ENGAGEMENT PLAN

Define Confirm
Build engagement
methodology Create an
engagement plan
and grievance engagement
plan activities
management timetable
and matrix
process

Identify,
Measure analyze & map
stakeholders

Identify
Determine
resources &
budget
responsibilities Engage

Figure c.

Preliminary strategy plan
Step 1
Assess project issues,
risks & opportunities
Identifying applicable regulations
and requirements
Virtually all projects must comply with a number of
regulations and requirements, whether imposed
internally or externally through industry standards or
local and national governments.
Gathering this information at the beginning of
your project can help to uncover certain risks
and opportunities. Working with experts in industry
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regulations can help you weed through the ever-
growing tangle of applicable requirements and
understand what steps must be taken to ensure
compliance.
Sample Regulations & Requirements
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
Code of business conduct and ethics Local, regional and national regulations
Anti-bribery and corruption policies
Privacy policy
Lender requirements
Applicable industry standard
Risk management International standards
Health, safety & environment World Bank (IFC)
Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC)
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
Reality A stakeholder plan is a great place to gather
all applicable regulations and requirements in a single
location. Centralizing this information will give you
a global view of project requirements and make it
easier to monitor compliance over time.
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1. Assess project issues,

risks & opportunities SOCIAL ENVIRONNEMENT

Identifying benefits
and drawback HEALT & SAFETY ECONOMIC

Projects also come with their fair share of benefits and

drawbacks – both perceived and real. These can be SECURITY
anything from opportunities for local employment and
new infrastructure to temporary noise disturbances to Figure d.

permanent resettlement.

The following is an example of how issues can be

categorized and subcategorized. (figure d.)

Reality Not all project issues can be anticipated from

the project’s outset, but many can. A careful analysis
will give you a clearer sense of where your stakeholder
engagement efforts will probably need to be directed and
at which stage of the project.
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Figure e.

Step 2 Classifying stakeholders Stakeholder Category Matrix

GOVERNMENT AFFECTED COMMUNITIES

AUTHORITIES Project affected people (PAP)
Classifying stakeholders according to issue
Local authorities First Nations
makes it easier to see which stakeholders
Identifying stakeholders Governments
Ministries
Representatives of
affected people
are affected by which issues. In turn, this will
Public advisory bodies Job seekers
make it easier to allocate resources where it
Once you have assessed the project’s
counts most.
CIVIL SOCIETY & COMMERCIAL
main issues, it will be easier to identify the
DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES ORGANIZATIONS
individuals and groups that are likely to be Part of this exercise should include Development agencies Local businesses
Nongovernmental organizations Local providers (services and
impacted by the project, and to what degree. classifying stakeholders according to broad (NGOs) products)
Religious authorities Associations
categories and more precise sub-categories,
Academic and research centers Unions
Reality Not all project affected people
as shown in the sample matrix below.
(PAP) will be key stakeholders, nor will all
key stakeholders be PAP. However, these
Reality Some stakeholder groups might
individuals and groups can wield influence
be predetermined through regulatory
over your project’s successful delivery. It’s
requirements. Also be sure to identify
important to know exactly who they are and
vulnerable stakeholders such as ethnic
just what degree of influence they may have
minorities, elderly, disabled, low income,
over your project.
women, etc., which may require special
attention.
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Analyzing & mapping Basic Stakeholder Skip this important step and you could end
up missing time-sensitive opportunities to
stakeholders Influence/Interest Chart
foster constructive relationships
with key stakeholders – or worse,

Power / Influence of stakeholder

It’s not enough to simply know who your
waste your engagement efforts on
stakeholders are. You also need to know
MEET THEIR NEEDS MANAGE CLOSELY the wrong people.
why and how you should be engaging with
them – and how often.
Reality Not all stakeholders in
a particular group or sub-group
An in-depth analysis of stakeholders will
will necessarily share the same
allow you to anticipate their potential KEEP INTO ACCOUNT KEEP INFORMED concerns, opinions or priorities.
impact on your project according to: What’s more, some highly
interested stakeholders have
• Their interests in the project
little to no influence among their
• How they will be affected by the project Level of interest of stakeholder peers. The goal is to focus more
• The amount of influence they wield efforts on stakeholders with the
Figure f.
most power capacity and impact.
 
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SAMPLE STAKEHOLDER MAP

Katherine Woods
Influence : -4
4 4
Position : 1

2 2
Position

0 0

-2
-2

-4 -4
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
Influence

Figure h.
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Step 3
Define objectives
You now have a fairly clear picture of
your project-related issues, who your
stakeholders are and how they should
be prioritized. The next step is to
use this knowledge to define your
stakeholder engagement objectives.
Having a clear set of objectives is
important. Not only will they form the
basis against which your stakeholder
engagement plan is measured, but
knowing where you are starting and
where you want to go will help keep
your planning and engagement
activities on track.
Objectives may include the following:
Goals
• Gather feedback and information from
stakeholders to guide certain project
Frank Gellar Gather feedback from stakeholders
parameters such as route selection
and design.
• Work constructively with John Smith Work constructively with stakeholders
stakeholders to successfully manage
their varying interests.
• Ensure any issues raised by Frank Gellar Manage raised isssues proprely
stakeholders are considered and
properly managed.
• Avoid project delays or rejection due
Figure i.
to stakeholder mismanagement.

Step 4
Determine your
methodology & grievance management process
There are a number of codes, frameworks and standards
organizations can refer to when developing their stakeholder
engagement plan. These frameworks, which aim to improve
sustainability performance, include:
• AA1000 standard on stakeholder engagement
• IAP2 on public participation and engagement
• GRI sustainability reporting guidelines on reporting
• SA8000 on labor standards compliance
• EQM excellence model on quality management
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These and other similar standards can help you establish
systematic processes, strategies and policies for guiding all
stakeholder engagement-related decisions, activities and overall
performance.
Grievance
management process
Depending on the nature of your project, it may be helpful to also
have a clear grievance management process in place. This process
should allow you to respond to grievances in a transparent and
timely manner, keep good records and report back.
Ideally, you should publicly state your grievance management
process and make it accessible to all stakeholders. It can also
be helpful to provide stakeholders a clear definition of what a
grievance is and your process for managing grievances, including
an estimated resolution time.
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Determining your There are many different ways of measuring Unfortunately, organizations often
the outcomes of stakeholder engagement underappreciate the value of being able
monitoring and reporting
activities, from Excel spreadsheets to to properly measure their stakeholder
process specialized information management engagement efforts and fail to dedicate
systems that centralize all stakeholder data the necessary resources to properly do
Monitoring and reporting make it possible
and related activities in a single location. so. This can limit their ability to respond to
for you and any concerned stakeholders to
such requests in a timely and professional
see your engagement efforts in action.
At any given point in a project, you can manner.
expect various stakeholders to ask for
Depending on your project, you may need
summaries and status reports of your
to keep track of a multi-person team
engagement activities. These requests
engaging with multiple stakeholder groups
may come from local communities, upper
and individuals scattered across multiple
management, regulatory agencies or
locations. This can add up to a lot of
financial lenders – all looking for specific
emails, phone calls, face-to-face meetings,
information.
commitments, travel logistics and more.

Why is implementing a
monitoring and reporting
process so important?
Having a clear process in place for
monitoring and reporting stakeholder
activities creates an environment of
transparency and accountability, which in
turn, promotes continuous improvement.
It also sets the stage for ensuring lessons
learned are put into practice and for
building a lasting corporate memory to
guide future stakeholder engagement
teams and activities.
Elements to consider:
• How will you monitor all stakeholder
activities?
• How will you use this information?
• What information will you need to
report and to whom?
• How will this information impact
engagement activities?
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Reality Being able to keep a close
eye on all engagement efforts and their
outcomes throughout the life of the
project will empower you to quickly
address emerging issues before they
snowball into crises. It will also confirm
whether the appropriate actions are
being taken in a timely manner, such as
following up on stakeholder calls, emails,
grievances, commitments, etc.
 Securing social acceptance - 2019 18

Figure j.

Using powerful software to improve
monitoring and reporting
Using a specialized stakeholder
engagement information management
system allows you to centralize all
stakeholder data in a single location.
This makes it easy to share the right
information with the right people – such as
across various levels of hierarchy within
the organization and with field staff
in remote locations.
This real-time access to information can
be immensely helpful when you need to
refer to a particular engagement that
took place two years ago, or when you’re
suddenly asked to report on all outstanding
commitments.
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The more powerful systems out there Some systems also come with built-in
also offer tremendous analysis potential, social and environmental data.
giving even more meaning to your data. For
example, in just a few clicks you can see
things like:
• The date of your last meeting with the
mayor, what subjects were discussed
and what commitments were made.
• How many grievances you’ve had over
the past 18 months, with details like
areas, subject and resolution time.
• A monthly report of your team’s
engagements with trends. Some
systems also come with built-in social
and environmental data.
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Step 5 Stakeholder

Ministry of
environment
Areas of influence
/ interest

Regulatory
compliance
Project
phase

All
Stakeholder Engagement
manager

Government
Realtors
approach

Consult
Engagement
tools

Face-to-face
Emails
Frequency

Very frequent

Environmental

Build your engagement plan mointoring

activities and matrix Ministry of Disuption of existing Construction Government Consult Face-to-face Frequent
infrastructures infrastructure Realtors Emails
Now that your stakeholder engagement Development of new
infrastructure
objectives have been validated, you can
Traditional Impact of traditional All Manager Consult Face-to-face Less frequent
confidently develop your engagement chiefs habits and customs Realtors Information
activities. Among other things, you’ll need to: Local impact and Community boards
opportunities

NGOs Socio-economic All Manager Consult Face-to-face Occasional

• Identify which tools will be used to and environmental Realtors Newsletter
implement your strategy monitoring
Community
• Create core messages
Figure k.
• Identify methods of communication
• Determine frequency of engagement Creating visual reference tools like matrixes and timetables can help make this stage of
• Plan public consultations & outreach planning easier. They will also help to ensure everyone remains on target and on schedule.
• Identify audiences for each engagement
• Etc.
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Step 6
Create an
engagement timeline

Your stakeholder engagement timeline should

include all key dates and actions, including
when final decisions need to be taken and
by whom. When creating your timeline, be
realistic about how long things take. Always
plan for more rather than less time for people
to get involved. Remember that time is needed
between events for work to be completed and
Figure l.
to be taken to the next stage.
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Step 7
Identify resources
& responsibilities
This step involves taking an inventory
of your organization’s resources and the
team’s current capacity, including any
specific knowledge, skills, weaknesses
or strengths. This exercise will allow you
to identify any gaps that could prevent
you from successfully carrying out your
engagement plan.
organizational chart can be a good way to
provide a visual overview of roles.
Elements to identify:
• A list of all team members, along with
their titles, detailed job descriptions and
locations
• Who is responsible for what
• To whom grievances are escalated
• Who is in charge
• Etc.
Tasks
Follow ups assigned to Frank Gallerger
Grievances management assigned to
As needed, develop your staff’s capacity
to engage stakeholders. This may include
hiring new staff members and providing
any necessary training.
Reality Clearly defining roles and
responsibilities will help to avoid
sticky issues like oversight, overlap,
contradicting commitments, inconsistent
communications, etc.
John Smith

Next, clearly identify who is responsible for

Monitor progression assigned to Monica Green
what, so that team members can properly
coordinate their efforts. Including an

Step 8
Determine your budget
Your preliminary plan should include
a detailed budget for carrying out
your stakeholder engagement plan.
Having a budget will ensure greater
accountability on how resources are
used. Once you begin engaging and
building relationships, having a clear
idea of your available budget will also
reduce the risk of overpromises or
suggesting that you can provide support
beyond your means.
To the greatest extent possible, ensure
your budget provides sufficient funding
to allow for in-depth and meaningful
stakeholder engagement that’s carried
out, monitored and reported as
efficiently as possible. Budgeting can be
a challenging task; you may need to turn
to other business units or even outside
consultants for assistance.
Depending on existing resources and
the nature of the project, a stakeholder
engagement plan budget may need to
cover items such as:
• Capacity building, such as hiring
& training staff
• Acquiring an information
management system
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• Production/translation of
informational
or educational materials
• Operational costs of community
consultations, advisory boards (CABs)
and similar structures
• Commitments
• Etc.
Reality Regularly review your budget
throughout the life of the project to
ensure your resources reflect evolving
stakeholder relationships
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Step 9
Announce the project
& collect feedback

Before your team dives head-first into carrying out your

stakeholder engagement plan, you need to ensure it’s aligned
with company objectives, stakeholder expectations, and any
applicable requirements and regulations.

The plan should be announced to the appropriate stakeholder

groups and their feedback should be gathered to shape the
actual plan you will be executing.

This step is extremely important as it will reveal any

shortcomings, oversights or over-reaches in your plan – all of
which could jeopardize the success of your project.
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PLAN ANNOUNCEMENT FEEDBACK
Congratulations, you have
PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT FEEDBACK
successfully developed a well-
thought out plan. But it’s not
quite final just yet. A stakeholder
ENGAGEMENT PLAN
ENGAGEMENT PLAN
engagement plan never truly is.

Throughout the life of the project, you will

Confirm
need to constantly gather feedback from engagement
plan
key stakeholders and make adjustments
to your plan as you carry out the 4 phases
of execution:
Identify,
Measure analyze & map
stakeholders

Engage
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Putting
your plan
into action
Keep in mind that a stakeholder
engagement plan only tells you where
you want to go. You also need the right
tools to get there while building and
maintaining trusted relationships with
key stakeholders.

Having an integrated stakeholder

engagement management system will
make it easy to proactively monitor
and report on all activities, and most
importantly, demonstrate that you are
meeting your commitments.

1 2
Confirm your
engagement plan
You can now use the valuable stakeholder
feedback collected on your preliminary plan
to firm up your official engagement plan. This
may entail making adjustments to some or all
of the elements covered in the planning steps
leading up to this point.
If you have properly done your homework,
these adjustments will most likely be minimal.
Even if they are not, however, this is the time
to be making major changes to your plan – not
later on when oversights could put your project
in hot water with key stakeholders.
Identify, analyze & map
stakeholders
Stakeholders are constantly changing
throughout the lifespan of a project. So may
their opinions, needs and impact on your
project. Be sure to constantly reanalyze and
map stakeholders. This will let you know in real
time who is influencing your project and how
you should be engaging with them.
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3
Engage Engage Engage
Thanks to everything done up to this
point, you are now ready to engage with
stakeholders. More specifically, you know
which team members need to engage with
which stakeholders, in which manner, for what
purpose, and how often.
You probably also have a fairly good idea
of what results you can expect from your
engagement activities. The only way to be
sure you’re on the right track, however, is by
measuring your efforts
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4
Measure Reality Measuring outcomes over time gives you
outcomes an opportunity to constantly refine your plan to take
into account any new issues or stakeholders that
may emerge as the project advances. In this way, a
Constantly measuring the results of your plan in action stakeholder engagement plan is never truly final; it
will enable you to take the necessary corrective actions just becomes increasingly more focused and efficient
quickly before emerging issues snowball into larger as you work your way toward successful project
problems. delivery.

Just as importantly, effective measuring and accurate

reporting will ensure that you and key stakeholders
have a credible real-time view of whether individual
engagement activities – or your stakeholder plan as a
whole – are meeting set requirements and objectives.
If you need help
• Align, monitor & report processes
on multiple sites
• Improve reporting
For the last 15 years, Borealis has been helping
• Optimize social performance / community
companies in various industries around the
relations activities
world successfully deliver projects by giving
them the tools and expertise they need to
Learn more at boreal-is.com or contact us at:
efficiently engage with key stakeholders and
Toll Free (Canada & U.S.) 1 855 238-8966
secure their support.

1 819 575-6037 / 1 514 313-5951

Through our Boréalis stakeholder engagement
Every day / 8am - 8pm EDT/EST
software and global network of collaborators, we
info@boreal-is.com
can help your team to:

• Put your engagement plan into action

• Facilitate land acquisition
• Meet lender requirements
• Comply with international best practices
• Demonstrate compliance
• Measuring outcomes over time gives
you for audit
• Gain & maintain social license to operate
Opposition Neutral Support
Securing social
acceptance BORÉALIS stakeholder engagement software
One platform for:
• Stakeholder engagement
A step-by-step guide to building a stakeholder • Community relations
engagement plan • Public affairs
• Social investment
is published by Boréalis. Content from this publication • Social baseline
may be reprinted when permission is obtained and credit • Local content
given to Boréalis. For editorial information, please contact • Impact assessment and monitoring
Boréalis at info@boreal-is.com. • Land access and compensation
• Socio-economic contributions
• Governance, risk and compliance
• Environmental monitoring

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