Identifying and involving stakeholders and their expectations

By using a stakeholder analysis, you’ll be able to determine...

... which internal and external stakeholders are relevant to your project,
... what their expectations, hopes and fears are, and
... the degree to which they can positively or negatively influence the project.

Internal stakeholders are the project’s primary target groups, the project’s managers, and the project staff.

External stakeholders are funders, policymakers, representatives of public administrations, other organizations, persons indirectly affected by the project, citizens’ initiatives, interest-group representatives, and associations of affected groups or individuals.

Stakeholder analysis in practice: YEA's stakeholders

YEA’s direct target group is made up of young people in transition to vocational training.

YEA focuses specifically on secondary-school students in the urban target area who, whithout tailored support, are likely to remain unemployed. Teachers and the youths themselves are consulted in the needs-assessment process.

Most of the targeted youth have parents without a great deal of education, and many have a migrant background. YEA has therefore decided to serve students beginning from their second-to-last year in school. A lesson from the predecessor project was that beginning in the final year of school does not provide enough time to do justice to individual needs.

It is important that a needs assessment is conducted individually for every participant. This is carried out through individual interviews and the use of a questionnaire.

At the same time, YEA examines how student needs have changed over the years. The analysis shows that intensified tutoring in German-language abilities has been necessary for the last three years.

Shortly after the start of the project, it becomes evident that YEA can achieve much more significant results if the youths’ parents support their participation in the project. The parents are thus identified as an indirect target group, and various measures are designed with the aim of involving them on an active and ongoing basis.