Is Value Leading Your Engagement Efforts?

Across every sector, successfully competing for the attention and involvement of our stakeholders, from those closely aligned to potential interested parties, is an ever-increasing concern. Engaging individuals requires organisations to navigate competing interests and distractions – to have value from the perspective of their intended audience.

However, chasing attention for its own sake is a dead end – ultimately, our audience’s involvement must also achieve critical organisational outcomes. In short, we must have value for all of those involved (in many cases, including indirectly for others, such as strategic partners or policy makers)

One of the simplest and most effective ways to capture that is through a value proposition.

What is a value proposition? It’s a genuine statement or summation of why your efforts in an endeavour matter to you – and equally, if not more importantly, matter to – and will capture the attention of – your stakeholders.

It should be explicit – so much so that your leaders and staff use it as a reference to genuinely guide their work. It should be clear – so it’s easily understood by internal and external audiences alike. And, it must be genuine.

In whatever form it takes, as in the simple higher education alumni engagement example below, I also believe it should include three characteristics:

• It should include elements that are highly valued -- providing that competitive edge against the other options out there
• It should be a realistic, unique selling point (USP) -- something that others currently or potentially could expect you to be exceptional in offering
• It should be reciprocal -- capturing a balanced view of the value of your work to your audiences and your organisation

As you consider your work in alumni or stakeholder relations, or any other endeavours in which you are attempting to engage others, I invite you to consider the following questions:

• Have we genuinely considered the needs and interests of our stakeholders?
• Are we realistic in what we can offer our audiences and what we can deliver to our organisations?
• And, ultimately, are we spending more time on highly valued opportunities to engage, and, in turn, less time on lesser valued activities?

Sample Value Proposition from D3 Advancement Studio