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Contents

Chapter 5: Process Attributes

Personal & Institutional Reciprocity

Personal & Institutional Reciprocity

While this varies considerably from project to project, reciprocity in engagement initiatives refers to the willingness and attention conveners pay to the value proposition for participants for the time and energy they contribute to the initiative. Doing so serves both instrumental and relationship-building goals. Among other things, we know from the literature and experience that there are a wide range of factors that influence whether participants, once invited, attend and actively participate in a sustained way.

Factors Influencing Participation

Some of these factors include participants’ perceptions of:

  • The value of information they receive
  • The likelihood that the effort will produce a satisfactory outcome
  • The likelihood participants’ time commitment will be commensurate with the time they invest
  • The degree to which they will learn something of value
  • The degree to which they will have a voice and their perspectives with be respected

From the perspective of conveners and facilitators, our goal is to provide as much value back to participants as we possibly can. This means ensuring complete, valid, and objective information, doing our best to collect and provide that information in appropriate and effective ways, and a willingness to go above and beyond to help the group maintain momentum as well as accomplish tasks. In simple terms, working to the maximum extent possible in service to the group.

There is an institutional aspect of reciprocity as well and requires that our respective host organizations or partner institutions be willing and prepared to provide (and budget for) a robust level of service and value consistent with the initiative’s goals and expectations. As facilitators and conveners, it will fall to us to ensure this alignment of resources, intentions, and capacity.

In short, because most effective engagement initiatives require the active and frequently sustained contributions of stakeholders and participants – often over weeks, months, or even years – we as conveners should seek to do everything, we can to ensure we provide as much value for participants as possible. In so doing, we will go a long way to fostering the trust and relationships we need to achieve success – across all the phases of the process.

Reciprocity in the Water 4 Ag Project

Examples of our approach to reciprocity included providing clear summaries of interviews and surveys tailored to aid discussions and decision making, assistance conducting biophysical research projects, coordinating the availability of external research and information relevant to group priorities and interests, and – importantly – establishing an ethos and expectation that project personnel and facilitators intended to work ‘in service to the group’.

Tools & worksheets

Additional resources

Stakeholder Engagement Process Attributes

This slide deck addresses the following questions related to stakeholder engagement process attributes: (1) What are they? (2) Where do they come from? and (3) Why are they important?

The World Café: Overview slides by WorkshopBank

“The World Café is a 20 year old workshop activity for engaging your participants in conversations that matter. It draws on 7 design principles to create a simple, effective and flexible format for hosting large group discussions for between 12 to 200 participants.”

The Role and Importance of Boundary Spanners – Fact Sheet

Describes the role played by “boundary spanners” – individuals who manage complexity and interdependencies and seek to establish new alliances, collaboratively develop innovative solutions, and encourage the transfer and translation of information – in engagement processes.