Stakeholder Management: Identify, Prioritize, and Act
Citizenship professionals are on the front line of company interactions with a wide array of stakeholders—community leaders, nonprofit partners, employees, and media—and these stakeholders often have differing or even conflicting points of view. What strategies and tools do you have to identify the groups with which you need to engage and to prioritize their issues? Join us and learn:
- How to assess and prioritize stakeholders by their levels of influence, urgency, and legitimacy.
- How to track issues and stakeholders as they evolve.
- Which tactics—monitoring, surveys, interviews, and focus groups—are appropriate for each stakeholder group.
- Key principles to ensure constructive and productive engagement.
- How to design a stakeholder policy and structure that is transparent and clear.
Take This Course Online, On Demand
You can enroll in this self-paced, online course today Enroll NowEnrollment Options
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Take It At the 2025 Spring Summit A significant portion of this course will be offered at the 2025 Spring Summit. You can complete the remaining portion at home, at your own pace. Come to the Summit for 1, 2, 3, 4, or all 5 days!
Take This Course Online This course is available in a fully-online, self-paced format. You can complete it at your desk, according to your schedule. Start any time!
Need Help Deciding? Our team is happy to walk you through your options, and explain the difference between taking a course online, in hybrid format, and/or as part of a certificate program. Please reach out with your questions!
Course Content: Preview the Specific Units or Modules Included in This Course
COURSE STRUCTURE
Start and finish on your schedule: Courses take 15-17 hours, including video content and exercises.
Module 1: Welcome and Context
- Introduce the concept of materiality, the issues that are relevant and significant to a company
- Activity: check your knowledge with a brief quiz
Module 2: Stakeholder Management
- Provides an overview of stakeholder management
- Activity: a case study and reflection on engagement and business objectives
Module 3: Stakeholder Identification
- Explore the many different types of stakeholders that exist, learn how to identify stakeholders using various dimensions, and classifying them to allow for more effective management
- Activity: identify your stakeholders
Module 4: Stakeholder Prioritization
- Understand how to prioritize your list of identified stakeholders in order to accurately direct resources toward stakeholder issues
- Activity: actively prioritize your stakeholders
Module 5: Stakeholder Issues
- Diagnose and analyze stakeholder issues, helping to determine how to address those issues
- Activity: identify stakeholder issues
Module 6: Stakeholder Engagement
- Dig into levels of engagement with a range of stakeholders, from monitoring to full partnership based on the priority of the stakeholder and the urgency of the issues at hand
- Activity: case study and devise a stakeholder engagement plan
Module 7: Issues and Topics
- Identify a full list of issues to consider with the application of a materiality assessment
- Activity: determine topics that are material for your company
Module 8: Analyze
- Investigate the full list of issues that have been identified, to inform the decision-making process regarding which issues are of greatest importance based on the available time and resources
- Activity: build a materiality analysis
Module 9: Act
- Continue in the materiality process through action to address the issues that have been identified and prioritized
- Activity: make choices that most appropriately fit a concern or issue
Module 10: Report, Communicate, and Monitor
- Learn about communicating the method and reporting findings based upon the actions taken
- Activity: a materiality analysis case study
Join us and learn:
> How to assess and prioritize stakeholders by their levels of influence, urgency, and legitimacy.
> How to track issues and stakeholders as they evolve.
> Which tactics—such as monitoring, surveys, interviews, and focus groups—are appropriate for each stakeholder group.
> Key principles to ensure constructive and productive engagement.
> How to design a stakeholder policy and structure that is transparent and clear.
This course is for:
Corporate citizenship professionals developing or refreshing their company’s CSR strategy; corporate citizenship professionals developing a comprehensive stakeholder engagement strategy or plan for a GRI G4 report; corporate citizenship professionals developing a community engagement strategy or plan for a new or emerging market; and other professionals engaging with external stakeholders in the design, development, and evaluation of programs.
Is your company a member? Corporate members SAVE an average of 20% on Executive Education offerings.
Suggested prior knowledge and skills:
Completion of a Center course including Corporate Citizenship Strategy, Corporate Citizenship Communications or Materiality: Determining Priorities for Corporate Citizenship Strategy and Reporting.
Professional credentials earned:
4 units will be applied to a Certificate in Corporate Citizenship Practice, and 1.2 Continuing Education Units (CEUs). This is an elective course for a Certificate in Corporate Citizenship Practice.