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Remember your stakeholders have objectives too
“Our experience of CGAP has taught us much about the interface between stakeholders and researchers. Stakeholders are not passive groups waiting to be illuminated by researchers; they have their own agendas, objectives and politics. Understanding this is key to managing expectations and building mutually beneficial relationships.” – Professor Catherina Pharoah, ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy
“The interface between stakeholders and researchers is a sensitive one and has to be managed and developed over time,” observes Profess Cathy Pharoah, co-Director at the ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP). The centre was established in 2008 and is funded by a collection of partners that includes the Economic and Social Research Council, government and charitable trusts. From the start stakeholder engagement with policy and practice was at the heart of the centre’s objectives. This is reflected in CGAP’s budget, with nearly a quarter dedicated to dissemination and knowledge exchange activities.
CGAP has worked hard to develop a national and international network of relationships that spans the third sector’s main umbrella organisations representing charitable foundations, fundraisers, wealth and philanthropy advisors, government policy makers, businesses and donors. Before joining the centre, Cathy was Director of Research for the Charities Aid Foundation. She says that having a background in the sector really helped to build contacts, but adds that they still had to put a lot of effort into creating a public profile for the centre: “I write a regular monthly column for Third Sector magazine, my co-Director Jenny Harrow and I regularly present at charity conferences, and we design our events and publications for a wide practice, policy and research audience.”
Cathy admits that setting up a research centre with a strong sector focus has many advantages but is not without its challenges. “There is often a tension between the world of academic research, its objectives and approaches to research and that of the practitioner who is seeking practical solutions to specific problems,” says Cathy. “The issue of who defines what is relevant research is a perennial one for many researcher-stakeholder relationships.”
The centre’s research programme was designed to meet the rigorous standards of research excellence that is expected by peer review. But, as Cathy points out, this approach while academically robust, resulted in some members of the community feeling excluded from the process, that their voices were not being heard, nor their specific needs met.
To address such concerns, CGAP is mindful to plan its knowledge exchange and dissemination activities to align closely with the issues that respond to current policy trends and the changing socio-economic situation, and are top of mind for its stakeholder communities. CGAP has been contributing evidence to policy and practice development in areas such as government’s giving strategy, charitable tax reliefs, promotion of charitable legacies, major donors’ interests, fundraising, foundation payout, and Big Society.
Its seminars provide the opportunity for charities and researchers to discuss the policy and practice landscape, the implications of research results as well as feedback on how centre’s research might inform change. It also produces regularly briefing notes and reports that are used by the sector both in the UK and internationally.
Part of the centre’s desired long term impact is to identify and to demonstrate to charities, big and small, how good research can benefit them. “We make time to meet with people on a one-to-one basis to discuss their charity’s research needs, and to explore what kinds of evidence it would be feasible to collect. This is an extremely valuable capacity building and knowledge exchange activity on both sides,” says Cathy.
Institution:ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy
Funding council:ESRC
Links
CGAP web page