Guide Dogs' Stakeholder Engagement Review

Stakeholders - what on earth are they?

Stakeholders are the people who have a vested interest in or reliance on our services. Understanding who our stakeholders are, what they want and need, and how best to give it to them is really important for Guide Dogs. We need this understanding to continue to serve our stakeholders and continue to build extraordinary partnerships.

We have a large number of stakeholders, including the guide dog owners of the UK, about 10,000 volunteers, 1,100 employees and 140,000 committed donors, as well as current and proposed 'partners' within the not for profit and wider support sector.

We recently appointed Humap UK to undertake the first part of a review to see how effectively we engage with our stakeholders.

The review needs enthusiastic and open input from all our stakeholders. It would be really helpful if we contribute our opinions to the review, and that if and when we're asked for our views, we are as forthcoming and honest as possible. This review is to help make us even better at what we do.

The intention is to ensure that stakeholders - external and internal - will be effectively motivated to support and participate with Guide Dogs and fully support the delivery of its 2010-2020 strategy.

Our new strategy demands a clear change programme, where each and every stakeholder will be encouraged to stand firm behind our core aim of making more blind and partially-sighted people mobile, and act passionately in this respect both inside and outside the organisation.

The first phase is a review involving our stakeholders, and this will be carried out by Humap UK (Jonathan Wilson and Doug Shaw). They will be organising workshops, questionnaires, and online research with stakeholders to include volunteers, Guide Dogs' services users, trustees and staff to deliver their results and recommendations.

The next three stages of the stakeholder engagement review will include: An examination of the 'drivers' for engaging the different stakeholder groups. A strategy will be produced to refine and reshape our methods around stakeholder engagement. All these activities will then be pulled together to produce an organisation-wide implementation plan.

Guide Dogs' Stakeholder Review Programme Team is made up of Tom Pey, Director of External Affairs and Review Programme Sponsor, Fiona Price, Head of Commercial Ventures, and Review Programme Executive, Tony Burrow, Corporate Project Manager and Review Programme Manager.

The four stages of this work should take approximately eight months.

Thanks in advance for your help.