Prepare

Logistics

A successful Stakeholder Process requires planning with a focus on how to optimize participants' time.

  • Clearly define Stakeholder Process roles. Suggestions:
    • Host(s) Identify staff at the organization convening, and with ultimate responsibility for hosting the model ordinance online.
    • Members Stakeholder Process members are expected to attend all meetings, review documents, make comments, and to support the resulting document either as an individual or for their organization.
    • Observers Stakeholders who participate in some or all of the Stakeholder Process but without the obligations or responsibilities of members.
    • Staff Host staff facilitate the process, provide analysis, prepare draft documents and incorporate comments. A key responsibility is to help steer the Stakeholder Process members toward solutions enabling the publication of a model ordinance that reflects the adoption procedures and planning goals of the state or municipality.
  • Meeting planning
    • Develop a list of individuals/organizations to invite.
    • Set time and location: Consider in-person, hybrid and/or online options. In the Massachusetts example, all meetings were online.
    • Set high-level objectives for each meeting.
    • Prepare agendas, presentations, and other materials.
  • Communications logistics
    • In developing the Massachusetts model ordinance all communications, including sharing of resources, were conducted via email. You may wish to select a project platform for your Stakeholder Process workflow.

Identify and Invite Stakeholder Process Members

The purpose of a Stakeholder Process is to bring together a diverse and inclusive group of key stakeholders to negotiate a balanced model ordinance that will serve the public good.

For the final document to be broadly accepted, the organization chosen as host should be seen as a balanced representation of all stakeholders.

Invitations to participate as a Stakeholder Process member are generally made to an identified individual at a represented organization. A list of the Massachusetts process members and their organizations can be found here.