Simply Stakeholders gave it’s small community relations team one shared system to log every interaction, resolve grievances end-to-end, and keep the relationship history intact.

Project highlights

“Continuity is key. I guarantee you in the next ten years I’m going to retire, and whoever takes over is going to want to know what I was working on. It needs to be there.”

– VP Government & Community Relations

Organization Background

The customer is a large mining and critical minerals company developing lithium projects across the Americas. A small, dedicated team of four handles government relations, community relations and corporate communications for the whole company – engaging regulators, landowners, communities and investors who all expect a consistent, defensible account of who has been told what, and when.

That combination of a lean team and a high-stakes, multi-decade project is exactly the challenge stakeholder relationship management software is built to solve, and it’s one of the reasons the company came to Simply Stakeholders. When an influential rancher led an unexpected opposition to one of their projects, threatening it’s progress, the team realised they needed a better way to manage these complex relationships and risks.

The Challenge: notebooks, spreadsheets and a growing list of people asking for proof

Before adopting stakeholder management software, engagement records lived in personal notebooks and notes apps, an ever-growing Outlook folder structure, and a spreadsheet for tracking complaints. It worked when the company was smaller, but as the need for accountability grew, it stopped being enough.

We need a program to catalogue all of our interactions, and that’s becoming more and more important. A few years ago, when we were a small company, just shooting from the hip, it was fine to keep those things in our heads. Now people are asking for specifics. If someone needs a list of every public official we’ve met with, being able to run that report quickly really matters.

– VP Government & Community Relations

The main challenges the team were looking to solve:

The Solution: one system for interactions, grievances and reporting

Project highlights

“The Simply Stakeholders platform design is great. It’s intuitive and flexible, which means it’s been able to evolve with us and continually meet the needs of our business.”

Hannah Willson, Engagement Manager at Neoen Australia

Organization Background

Neoen is one of the Australia’s leading renewable energy companies, with over 4 GW of capacity across 19 assets currently under construction and in operation. They develop, construct and operate onshore wind farms, solar farms and battery storage assets.

Neoen is working across QLD, NSW, ACT, VIC, SA and WA. Its portfolio includes some of the country’s most powerful renewable energy and battery assets such as:

• The 460 MWp solar farm at Western Downs Green Power Hub in QLD
• The 560 MW / 2.2 GWh Collie Battery in Western Australia
• The 412 MW Goyder South Wind Farm in South Australia.

You may even be familiar with their work in launching the world’s first big battery in 2017 — the Hornsdale Power Reserve or the ‘SA Big Battery’ in SA.

Hannah Willson is Neoen’s Engagement Manager. She works across the organization’s Australian portfolio. “My original role was as a Community Liaison Officer (CLO) for Neoen’s Goyder Renewable Zone in South Australia, embedding myself in the local community and forging vital stakeholder relationships to assist with the development and construction of Neoen’s flagship hybrid renewable energy project in the region.”

As an Engagement Manager, Hannah now oversees multiple CLOs across Neoen’s portfolio and works alongside project managers, ensuring stakeholder connections and communications meet the organization’s high-standards and are in line with regulatory obligations.

The Challenge: Spreadsheet Replacement, Active Projects, Futureproofing Stakeholder Management

Neoen started using Simply Stakeholders in 2023 by first undertaking a ‘pilot’ to test its useability and relevance on one of its projects. “We first used Simply Stakeholders for logging and mapping our community relationships and interactions during the construction of our wind farm within the Goyder Renewables Zone. Given our project was already under way when we started looking for stakeholder relationship management (SRM) software, we started by migrating data from our existing spreadsheet system,” said Hannah.

Neoen recognised that maintaining the breadth of stakeholder engagement using only spreadsheets was close to impossible for its large-scale projects. “I had a lot of information across multiple documents, as well as stored in my head,” admitted Hannah. The company’s engagement team knew that this way of working wasn’t sustainable — for this project or its other developments.

The Engagement team worked together to find an SRM software that would meet the organization’s needs, and that they could start using almost immediately for its Goyder South Wind Farm. And although there was a priority on present needs, Hannah and the team were able to keep an eye on the future.

“As an Engagement team, the future-vision we had for Neoen was creating a central source of truth. A resource that stands up for the life of the asset (sometimes around 30 years), that’s useful to asset managers if they need access to information relating to a challenge or change in circumstance,” said Hannah. Switching to SRM software was about more than this one project. It was about futureproofing all stakeholder management methods for a renewable energy project within the organization.

When looking for a solution, the engagement team knew the right option would:

1. Offer a framework or platform to house data accurately
2. Be a trusted reference source for project teams managing an asset as it progresses through its lifecycle (development, construction, and operations)
3. Help the organization fulfil legal stakeholder management obligations
4. Provide staff with an intuitive, user-friendly interface.

The Solution: SRM Centralization and Supported Platform Adoption During an Active Project

Once the engagement team settled on Simply Stakeholders (“It ticked all the boxes we needed and was fit for purpose”), implementation was rapid.

Hannah, along with the help of a dedicated data entry assistant, migrated the existing spreadsheet data for her project into Simply Stakeholders. And with the support of Joana Zaper from the Simply Stakeholders customer success team, the platform was up and running within days. It may not have been perfect, but it was capable of supporting basic stakeholder management, such as stakeholder register management and task tracking.

“It was a massive relief to pour out all of the information into ready-to-go frameworks, saved on a platform that’s designed exactly for the purpose of SRM,” said Hannah. And removing spreadsheets led to truer data collection. “I no longer felt boxed in by spreadsheet cells, which sometimes made it impossible to accurately capture the nuances of stakeholder interactions,” she said.

A pilot with the Goyder South Wind Farm project allowed Neoen’s engagement team to test Simply Stakeholders’ effectiveness for managing basic SRM requirements and gave them a taste of how it could simplify internal tasks.

“Not only did the Goyder South Project involve a large volume of data, but it included quite a complex web of stakeholders,” said Hannah.

The project involved many landowners hosting wind farm infrastructure. Hannah explained that “successful relationship management involved getting to know them, their families, neighbours, and so on. All of those details are an important part of the story when sitting around someone’s kitchen table, having a cup of tea, and talking about what we hope to accomplish with the use of their land.”

Dynamic stakeholder mapping created a visualisation of complex stakeholder relationships, which ensured the right stakeholders were consulted at the right points in the project, and given information relevant to them.

As the project progressed through its development lifecycle, the engagement team noted how much smoother it was to handover stakeholder information to the next line of project team members. “Now when we roll Simply Stakeholders out to new projects or employees, we (I, CLOs, and Project Managers) start by saying, ‘Hey, let’s think about what the Construction and Operations team may need in the future.’”

Outcomes: A Flexible, Intuitive Platform That Evolves With the Organization

All our CLOs have adopted Simply Stakeholders as part of their daily workflow, with Project Managers embracing the platform for relationship-specific needs that support development and construction. Currently, Neoen uses Simply Stakeholders for:

• Stakeholder register and interactions management
• Engagement task management
• Customized internal reporting
• Surveys and group updates
• Data management
• Workflow automation.

Simply Stakeholders has been rolled out for use on other Neoen projects in Australia since then. Each time, the platform is adapted to deliver project specific stakeholder management features. By working collaboratively with Joana and the Simply Stakeholders team, Neoen creates environments that evolve with the needs of the organization. “I have an idea of how we want to use it in the business and Joana has knowledge of the technical side and how we’re able to do it,” explains Hannah.

The result of ongoing monthly-meetings with Joana and fast turnaround troubleshooting support has led to:

• Tailored feature creation to meet Neoen’s requirements regarding stakeholder communications
• Increased use of relationship mapping and reporting.

“What we’ve created using reports so far has been amazing, and it’s something we’re looking to utilize more,” said Hannah.

The Wrap Up

So, if another company were to ask Hannah about using Simply Stakeholders, what would she say to them?

“I highly recommend the platform. It allows us to complete vital stakeholder management work, which makes it easier for Neoen’s CLOs and Project Managers to embed themselves in the local community. Through this work vital relationships are maintained, which ultimately aid the successful development, construction, and completion of projects.”

And what about the experience of working with Simply Stakeholders?

“The support is amazing. Whether it’s using the chatbot to get a refresher on how things work or reaching out to the customer success team directly, we’ve never felt stranded. However, special mention to Joana — the consistency and continuity of her assistance is very valuable.”

Across 310,000 hectares of Queensland, from the New South Wales border to Cairns, HQPlantations (HQP) quietly does something most Australians benefit from without realising it. They sustainably manage the plantation forests that supply the timber for around 25,000 new house frames every year as well as other important timber products including flooring, appearance grade plywood, beams, products for the housing and construction industry while other parts of the tree are processed into products such as woodchips for paper and packaging, particleboard, and engineered wood products.

Around 190,000 hectares of that estate is commercial softwood plantation, mostly southern pine, with smaller areas dedicated to the beautiful endemic hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii). The remaining land is riparian, buffer, and native forest that HQP manages and protects.  The business maintains certification under international recognised sustainable forest management standards, which provides independent verification that the land, the waterways, and the communities that sit alongside the plantations are looked after properly.

Alongside HQP’s core work of managing productive, healthy plantations forests for long term success, HQP manages a large interface with plantation neighbours, the surrounding communities, permittees and visitors. The majority of HQP’s estate is located on State Forest tenure under a Plantation Licence Agreement managed by the Queensland State Government. Under this Licence, the plantations and surrounding buffer areas remain conditionally accessible the public. This significantly widens the engagement scope and complexity.

The stakeholder map

Sharon Beattie is HQP’s Community Engagement Manager, and the list of people she and her team engage with is long. Over 10 local government authorities, multiple state government departments, twenty First Nations groups, environmental and land care groups, graziers and apiarists and thousands of neighbouring landholders. Plus, more than a million recreational users a year including four-wheel drivers, horse riders, motorbike riders, and mountain bikers.

“We aim to build positive relationships, mutual understanding, and respect with industry, government, and our neighbours.”

Sharon Beattie, Community Engagement Manager

The old way was holding them back

For years, HQP used a bespoke internal system that had served the business well but did have some limitations.  Ongoing maintenance and updates to the system were limited as , it was not web-based and it was difficult to produce reports.

The real cost was not technical. It was that HQP could not track engagement and trends easily. Often, interactions went unrecorded because data entry as was fiddly. Trends went unnoticed due to reduced reporting functions.

“There was no quantification, and therefore no way to quantify and improve. It was just reactive.”

Sharon Beattie

Finding Simply Stakeholders

The introduction came the way good tools often do, through someone who had used it before and recommended it. HQP evaluated it alongside several other platforms and chose Simply Stakeholders.

Sharon advises that they chose Simply Stakeholders based on:

• a clean, simple and intuitive user interface
• strong IT security focus and governance
• great support from the Darzin team
• developing AI capability enabling more streamlined recording, categorising of interaction details
• capacity to manage and link complexity across stakeholder relationships (individuals within and across organisations)
• Spatial and web form capability
• An app version with offline capability.

Implementation took around six weeks to get reporting and task management up and running. As with any platform change, adoption was mixed at first. The people familiar with the previous system needed time to let go of it. The newer team members, Sharon included, found Simply Stakeholders noticeably easier to pick up.

What’s different now

Reports in minutes, not days. An executive or board overview of engagement activity took time to collate. Now it takes minutes. For a small team managing stakeholders across a state-sized estate, that time comes back in ways that matter.

“If the Board or the CEO wants an overview of stakeholder engagement it is now available within minutes. Previously, this task was very time consuming due to our geographic range and multiple interactions.

Sharon Beattie

Smarter complaint management. HQP has always responded to complaints quickly. What has changed is what happens next. The team can now look across complaint data, see clusters by issue or location, look for trends and then to fix the underlying cause rather than just the symptom.

A team that is still growing into it. Sharon is honest that the journey is not finished. Because engagement is not a daily activity for most users, habit is building slowly, and HQP is still refining tags, reports, and workflows to fit the reality of a continuous operation rather than a discrete project. That work is ongoing, and Simply Stakeholders is in it with them.

The bigger picture

The change Simply Stakeholders has supported at HQP is not really about software. It is about visibility. A business that manages a public-facing estate, works with government, industry and community partners, supports local economies through timber supply, and hosts a million recreational visitors a year needs to be able to see, understand, and learn from its engagement.

For Sharon and her team, that work now has a home.

Book a walkthrough Want to see how Simply Stakeholders supports stakeholder relationship building in forestry? Reach out and book a personalized demo with our team! Book a Demo

Project highlights

“The client is happy with Simply Stakeholders. The process of adapting and maturing has revealed which functions are the most useful to them and, ultimately, it’s created a significant shift in terms of how the client manages their stakeholder engagement records.”

Joana Zaper, Simply Stakeholder Customer Success Team

Organization Background

Priding itself on supporting innovation and growth, this local government works to promote the vast and varied lifestyles that the area caters to.

Local Government stakeholder relationship management can be complex due to the breadth and depth of work Councils understake and the many touch points with their community and stakeholders.

The client’s lead for stakeholder engagement is dedicated to managing stakeholder relationships for around 1,700 capital infrastructure projects across the area. The team consists of 10 stakeholder engagement specialists, each assigned to diverse infrastructure and construction ready projects.

The Challenge: Changing Platforms and Team Adoption

Managing a huge volume of residents and visitors with diverse stakeholder needs, requires the Council to be agile and responsive. So as the Council’s focus evolved in response to stakeholder need, a new way to manage the relationships more comprehensively and efficiently was recognised. 

“The system that was in place worked really well for the original purpose that it was intended. But when the client’s SRM priorities changed, it was time for a more fit for purpose system,” said Joi, who works closely with the client.

Attempts to repurpose the existing system were explored. People still added information, but the system functions at the time no longer aligned with the work that the client was producing. 

Ultimately, they needed to make a decision about the continuity of the system. “In the end, they reverted to using spreadsheets,” said Joi, and explained the familiar yet undesirable situation of having to rely on asking people for their individual accounts and records of stakeholder interactions. The client’s centralized system had vanished, which slowed the work pace and increased the risk of potential errors.

It was less than ideal, but the client was confident this would be a short-term solution due to the systems in place being unsustainable for the team in terms of workload. Once the client made the call that long-term, effective change was needed, they were hellbent on finding an intuitive, easy-to-use stakeholder management platform that her team would find irresistible.  

The Solution: An Intuitive, User-Friendly Platform That Simplified Even Basic Stakeholder Management

Following an efficient and thorough process, Council staff dedicated five months to finding the right system for their needs.

Success meant finding a platform that:

1. The team would use consistently to establish a reliable, centralized record of all stakeholder engagement
2. Assisted with task management, improved productivity, and smoothed the workload process so tracking deliverables was easier
3. Was intuitive and user friendly. 

Aware that they were coming from a significantly different system, the client embraced the notion that they were working with a blank canvas. Potentially, they could create the ideal stakeholder engagement and management environment, so flexibility and adaptability would be an attractive draw.  

To make sure they found a solution that was sustainable, all system users were involved throughout the process. “The client explained that their team’s buy-in from the start was paramount,” said Joi. 

After the research phase was completed, the client concluded that Simply Stakeholders was the platform that suited them the most.

Outcomes: Positive Adoption and Centralized Data Lead to Speedier Data Discovery and Slick Report Creation

The client has been using Simply Stakeholders since late 2024, with the full rollout to the team occurring in early 2025. For them, it’s been a journey as they’ve been rebuilding and configuring their centralized registers, interactions, and embracing the opportunity to work with task tracking.

“In the first few months, the team focused on interactions with stakeholders, making sure they understood how to use the platform to get the basics right. The goal was to make using the system a positive habit,” said Joi. 

Using Simply Stakeholder has helped with:

• Stakeholder records and interaction: “In less than a year, the Council has gone from having a very small amount of centralized data to over 4,000 stakeholder records and 3,000 logged interactions.”
• Task management: “By recording all of their deliverables onto the system — fact sheets, project notifications, council briefings — they can easily see what activity is happening and what stage in the process a task is at.”
• Report creation: “The client finds it exceptionally easy to pull data. As a result, the reports they produce for management and for the team’s own records are very useful.”  

With positive signs that the platform is being used consistently, the client has turned its attention to the more advanced features, such as stakeholder mapping. 

“The client are working in the growth and maturing phase,” admits Joi, and is keen for the client to know there’s more the client can experiment with. But currently this Council is using the platform for:

• Stakeholder and interaction registers 
• Stakeholder mapping
• Task management
• Customized internal reporting
• Data management
• Sentiment tracking
• Complaints management. 

With such positive signs, the eventual plan is to roll out the use of Simply Stakeholders to other teams in Council. 

While the current configuration suits the needs of a single project stakeholder management team, flexibility within the platform allows for individual team customization. Without complicating things for other teams. The result is an ultimate single source of truth regarding stakeholder interactions.  

The Reality of Moving

Changing to a new platform, system, and way of working was a massive shift for this team. It would be remiss not to acknowledge the upheaval.

“The client was clearly excited to have Simply Stakeholders as a resource. But moving also presented a challenge,” says Joi of the onboarding process and initial few months. “At first, the client was presented us with more work as they created the systems they needed for operation, configured the platform, and created positive work habits,” says Joi. 

A massive task was facing the client. But they weren’t going it alone. Throughout the switch, they called on Joana, their dedicated Customer Success support advisor. 

“It was a pleasure to help with the client’s transition. Supporting them involved being available for calls, training sessions, and of course answering queries as they came through.”

The Wrap Up

For this Australian-based local government, Simply Stakeholders has helped with centralizing important stakeholder data that directly affects local projects. For a time, this data was difficult to access, which slowed processes and affected team performance and project delivery continuity. But with positive team adoption and consistent use, the centralization of key stakeholder data has smoothed processes, increasing team efficiency and accountability.

Try Simply Stakeholders! Book a personalized demo with our team and see our features and tools in action! Get a Demo

Project highlights

“Simply Stakeholders makes it easier for the team to see what needs actioning. And there’s real power in the analysis and reporting side of it. This combination gives each team member the confidence to dive in — they can see all the stakeholders connected to a particular site. As a result, they can focus more on what they need to do once they’re out there.”

Vanessa Rodgehiero, Community and stakeholder engagement manager at The Perth Mint

Company Background

Gold Corporation, trading as The Perth Mint, refines and manufactures gold, silver, and platinum bullion, coins and bars for domestic Australian organizations and international traders. Alongside this, they manufacture collector coins. 

Vanessa Rodeghiero is the Community and Stakeholder Engagement Manager — a role that involves her overseeing stakeholder engagement in relation to a project that aims to transform historical gold processing sites into beneficial projects for Western Australia.

She says, “As part of this work, it’s my role to keep all of the stakeholders informed about how the transformation will work and what’s happening. The projects my team and I work on need to deliver the best outcomes for the town or region.”  

The Challenge: Managing and Mapping Stakeholder Volume

The number of stakeholders involved in, or affected by the varied works that need to happen on the sites is considerable. So Vanessa and her team knew they’d be dealing with a high-volume of stakeholders and associated data. 

Just one site can involve a variety of stakeholder groups, such as local community members and councils, regulators, government departments, and internal stakeholders. Sometimes all of them. And, as Vanessa points out, “In Western Australia a lot of the sites involve native title rights, so I’m working with the traditional owners in all of those relevant areas as well. And there’s commercial interest, too,” says Vanessa. 

Keeping track of each stakeholder group, their relationship with the organization, and their requirements was a difficult task. Made harder as there was no centralized database. 

“The original process relied on a number of different people, liaising with different stakeholder groups,” says Vanessa. The result was a bunch of spreadsheets used by different internal stakeholders as each individual tracked their own work with external stakeholder groups. Sharing essential regulatory and approval information was time-consuming, proving that the spreadsheet system couldn’t support the volume of data. 

But that wasn’t the only difficulty with the existing system. 

“We had records of historical conversations happening with different stakeholders. Some went as far back as the 1980s and were stored in boxes of files and paperwork,” says Vanessa. 

Vanessa explains that it “made getting a grip of mapping those stakeholders difficult.” And this was a major issue and challenge for the project. “We want to be leading our project with the community at the heart of it — stakeholder engagement is central to the outcomes, so getting the mapping right was really important.”    

An Additional Obstacle

As well as needing a better way to map stakeholder relationships, Vanessa was mindful that some of her team weren’t from a stakeholder management background.

“I work alongside people with a mining engineering background, a geophysicist, and environmental specialists. For me it was important to create a framework and build a stakeholder management system for the team. One that they’d find accessible and actually use.”

An historic state battery. Credit: The Perth Mint.

The Solution: One Place to Centralise Community and Engagement Data

Thanks to her decades of experience in stakeholder management, Vanessa knew during the project’s early stages that stakeholder management software would be imperative. 

“There was no way we were going to be able to manage the number and the volume of stakeholders without proper organisational stakeholder mapping and software,” says Vanessa. 

When looking for a solution, Vanessa knew the right option would:

• Offer a fast and effective way to centralise the community and engagement data 
• Help all team members collect and create important report data in a time-effective manner  
• Allow the team to work offline in remote settings where data isn’t always available 
• Track stakeholder sentiment.  

Simply Stakeholders ticked all those boxes. 

Outcomes: Centralized Data Increases Efficiency, Is Convenient, and Instils Confidence

The Perth Mint has been using Simply Stakeholders since mid-2024. Their initial setup was swift, but it took around six months for it to really settle in. (“It took that long for us to reach a point where it really came into its own. But given the volume and different backgrounds of the team, we accounted for this.”)

Now it’s in regular, daily use by the team, bringing increased fluidity, cohesion, and ease to their work. 

“Part of choosing Simply Stakeholders has been the training, and training our team how to use the platform so they can understand the power and importance of tracking everything. In doing so, it supports them in all of their engagements,” says Vanessa. 

But it’s also helped with:

• Internal reporting: “It’s given us the ability for reporting that’s really critical, and made it simple.”
• Greater work flexibility: “The availability of an app helps during those times when our team members are working remotely.”
• Supporting live reporting: “Creating a live report (with the stakeholder’s permission) is helpful in terms of efficiency as I don’t have to wait to write things up when I’m back at my computer. The voice-to-text is a time-saver.” 

Currently, The Perth Mint is using the platform for:

• Stakeholder mapping to identify key/influential/impacted stakeholders in the project
• Task management to assign action items to the right person, and make sure it gets done
• Reporting to keep the executive up to date on key risks, opportunities and engagement metrics
• Customised dashboard for reporting for more flexibility and creating granular dashboards
• Data management to maintain shared records and build institutional knowledge of the history with key stakeholders
• Sentiment and issues analysis to proactively manage key elements of stakeholder relationships.

The Added Bonus: Discovering the Power of Tasks

As well as Simply Stakeholders meeting all of their initial software requirements, it’s also turned up a surprise. “An added bonus, which we didn’t really know about at the very start but is really helping us, is the tasks,” says Vanessa. “It helps us keep on top of everything. And that’s key to stakeholder management.” 

After an interaction, an action is needed. The task function allows users to assign the task to the relevant person. “The tasks really made it easier for the team; for them to see what needs actioning,” she said.  

The result is greater confidence. “With tasks clearly assigned, the team can dive in and see all of the stakeholders connected to a particular site. On a daily organisational level, this cuts down the amount of preparation time needed before visiting a site. So once they’re out there they can better focus on what they actually need to do.”

The Wrap Up

For The Perth Mint, Simply Stakeholders assists with stakeholder satisfaction. Particularly when navigating sensitive engagements, such as traditional owner engagement. 

So, if another company were to ask Vanessa about using Simply Stakeholders, what would she say to them?

“Simply Stakeholders gives everyone an easier way to manage a large amount of data. Even if they don’t come from a strictly stakeholder management background. Or, like me, they don’t consider themselves a technical person. Using this software, you’ll find that everyone in your team is able to produce the reports and evidence they need, with confidence.” 

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With no system to record and track stakeholders, The Nature Conservancy (Long Island) couldn’t progress further in its community engagement efforts. In early 2022, they implemented Simply Stakeholders to help them scale up their community partnerships and reach more groups. As a result, they were able to get more organized, improve their planning, and begin tapping into new stakeholder groups that were interested in conservancy within the region.

Situation

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental nonprofit with a mission to conserve land and water so that diversity of life can thrive. Part of their work involves engaging with other local conservation and community groups to help get more people involved in the conservation efforts.

Many people emerged from the pandemic with a greater appreciation of the outdoors. The Nature Conservancy Long Island wanted to capture this shift in attitudes to start conversations about their work. They saw an opportunity to engage beyond the conservation groups they regularly partnered with. If TNC could pull more community groups (for example, faith communities) into their conversations, they could potentially find others who would want to work towards some of the same goals.

In early 2022, TNC Long Island Community Partnership Manager, Natalie Ryan, began exploring stakeholder tools to help the team manage their existing community contacts and build relationships with new potential community partners.

Challenge

Prior to 2022, The Nature Conservancy’s Long Island team did not have a single system for storing their stakeholder contacts.

This included Natalie, who came to her role with a large excel spreadsheet of community contacts she’d acquired throughout her career.

Without a dedicated stakeholder management system, the team found it difficult to scale up their community engagement efforts. Specific challenges included:

• Disorganization – Because everyone maintained their own separate contact lists, information was in siloes, or not recorded at all.
• Limited Insights – No system to store stakeholders made it difficult to identify stakeholders, track trends, and report on activities.
• Inefficiency – The small partnerships team needed new tools to manage their large (and growing) list of stakeholders.

Solution

To reach their goals, the team at TNC began looking for a software solution that would help them get better organized. They initially looked into their team’s existing fundraising software, but this wasn’t the right fit for their engagement goals. 

That was when TNC came across Simply Stakeholders. It was exactly what they were looking for — a tool that would help them get better organized and more informed as their program grows and develops.

Since implementing Simply Stakeholders, TNC have used the following features:

• Stakeholder Lists – New and existing stakeholder contacts are uploaded to Simply Stakeholders for easy tracking and management
• Contact Groups – Stakeholders are sorted into groups, so the team can easily see who is being engaged with, in what way, and how often
• Email Plugin – The Outlook email plugin allows the team to import data into Simply Stakeholders without leaving their inbox
• Analytics – The team can quickly access insights into contact groups, interactions, and outcomes 

As their community engagement program continues to grow, Natalie and the team are keen to explore Simply Stakeholders’ other capabilities, potentially rolling it out more broadly to other teams and projects.

Outcomes

As a result of implementing Simply Stakeholders, TNC Long Island can easily add, track, and manage their contacts within the community. This has impacted their work with:

• Streamlined Processes – The team can easily gather and organize their data, with processes that can scale up as their program grows and develops.
• Better Planning – Insights allow the team to see the impact of their work, know what’s working, and identify who they need to target next.
• Broader Engagement – The Nature Conservancy team is already finding new stakeholders to connect and engage with.

Engagement At a Glance

Borrow some ideas and tips for your next engagement:

• Think outside the box – Groups and sectors you don’t typically engage with may be more interested in your issues than you expect
• Attend regional gatherings – These are a great place to meet new people and start conversations
• Record contacts – After an initial conversation, add their contact info to your stakeholder software
• Follow up – Invite new contacts to a local preserve or meeting
• Map stakeholders – Visualize your stakeholders on a map to identify where your community members are located
• Be persistent and consistent – It usually takes a couple of meetings or calls to get a relationship moving
• Track your engagements – The number of interactions can gauge interest, trust, and momentum in the relationship

Simply Stakeholders were pleased to assist this organization in implementing a system to record and track stakeholders, supporting the team to reach more groups and scale up their partnerships. Our team will be here for ongoing collaboration and support as The Nature Conservancy taps into more features within the platform.

A large Australian wind farm developer needed to manage complex stakeholder relationships and landholder agreements across their five new projects. They chose Simply Stakeholders to manage their stakeholder data, while gaining insights into issues, relationships, and stakeholder sentiment.

Challenge

A large Australian wind farm developer had committed to building five new wind farms across the country. But before they could break ground, they first needed to work closely with all affected landowners and enter into a landholder agreement with each.

In order to accomplish this goal, they would need to track all the details of each affected parcel of land, including:

• Owners
• Occupants
• Property managers
• Wind farm impacting it
• Likely impacts
• Required agreement type
• Agreement status
• All related communications, grievances, and tasks

Plus, they needed to track all interactions with contractors, local community and environmental groups, journalists, and government departments.

In addition, they needed a way to identify if any of these stakeholders was likely to become a risk to the project — and why.

With so much data to track, and so much riding on that data, the developer needed to be confident their staff could easily record the required information, and that it would be immediately available to the rest of the team.

Solution

The wind farm developer recognized they needed stakeholder software for wind farm projects and chose to use Simply Stakeholders to fulfil that need.

Some of the features and capabilities implemented included:

• Easy import – They quickly imported all existing stakeholder and property details from a CSV
• Relationships – They defined all the relevant relationships, linking landholders to properties, employees to employers, properties to projects, projects to community groups, and more
• Interactions – In addition to manually recording the details of spoken conversations, they used the Outlook/Gmail plugins to automatically save all emails, attachments, and calendar events to the corresponding stakeholders within the system
• Forms – They used feedback forms on their website to collect feedback, linking any responses to the relevant stakeholders
• Sentiment – They used stakeholder sentiment scores to rate each interaction and understand the health of their relationships
• Tasks – They created tasks with automatic reminders
• Tagging – They used tags to highlight specific text within saved emails so they could flag it as relevant to a specific issue

Outcome

As a result of using Simply Stakeholders to capture all their data in one place, the developer had a single source of truth that covered all of their projects.

They were able to check in at any time to see the status of all tasks and agreements, along with the details of any communications. They could also see which priority stakeholders needed the most attention at any moment.

This meant that the developer could be confident they weren’t overlooking anywhere and they could easily decide what action to take next in order to keep things running smoothly.

The Wrap Up

The Simply Stakeholders team were delighted to support this organization as they worked towards their goal of achieving landholder agreements prior to breaking ground. We look forward to continuing to provide tools for tracking agreements and managing stakeholder relationships throughout the development and beyond.

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To create a clear, easy-to-maintain repository of information about all important relationships for their team that would help them build understanding and consensus, Ottawa Police Service invested in Simply Stakeholders’ stakeholder engagement software.

The Challenge: Collating Stakeholder Data Into a Secure Central Source

The Ottawa Police Service Force (OPS) lacked a centrally managed data repository that could be universally accessed and used to manage relationships and meet their CSWB (Community Safety and Well-Being) Framework commitments. This need became increasingly apparent as the region went through a period of significant civil unrest following COVID-19.

At the time, they only had spreadsheets to record their data, and this limitation was hampering their efforts. Adding to the challenge, they had numerous staff in lockdown and were experiencing some staff turnover, which meant that their (often sensitive) stakeholder data and relationship histories were becoming fragmented and inaccessible.

The OPS needed an always-available, single source of truth that their staff could maintain using only their cell phones and home-office computers. They needed a solution that would be quick to set up, and that they could build on over time.

The Solution: An Adaptive SRM Platform With Integration Capabilities

After evaluating a number of options, Ottawa Police Service chose Simply Stakeholders as their relationship management solution. They determined the platform was the best fit due to its focus on creating a single source of truth, functioning as an IT system that would help them manage their central repository with all information and relationship profiles, including detailed stakeholder interactions, management, and analysis capabilities. Plus, the individual and role-based privileges would allow them to control who sees what data.

Other important features and capabilities initially implemented included:

• Task Boards – Each team could have its own task board, allowing them to create workflows from interactions and complaints and maintain to-do lists within the team
• Notifications – Users could receive push notifications when tasks are due

OPS’ implementation of Simply Stakeholders is still ongoing. The customer success team is supporting them to discover and implement additional features that will help them achieve their ultimate goal of creating a Relationship Portal for the entire OPS. This includes:

• Alerts – Setting these to pop up when opening relationship records to highlight key info for Senior Command and/or any major concerns to be aware of
• Keyword Search – Easily finding relationships or events via the search bar
• Tags – Using tags to quickly assign key stakeholder info, like associated OPS strategies and partnership opportunities
• Custom Fields – Adding any type of information to stakeholder profiles, such as lead contact, lead OPS unit, cultural sensitivities, or financial implications
• Timeline – Viewing a history of events, interactions, and follow up items for each stakeholder
• Analysis – Seeing insights into stakeholders using analysis, charts, and relationship health scores
• Files – Attaching minutes, MOUs, pictures, and other files to stakeholder records
• Feedback – Gathering stakeholder feedback via forms
• Dashboard – Seeing a quick overview of valuable information on stakeholders and the engagement

Outcomes: Improved Task Management and Data Access

Simply Stakeholders’ tools helped Ottawa Police Service quickly gain a clearer picture of who their key stakeholders are, while supporting key team members with visibility into stakeholder interactions, relationships, and what actions needed to be taken. Plus, it enabled an auditable data trail that showed what was said by who and when, allowing the team to evaluate and report on their stakeholder management activities, and apply their learnings to future events.

But there’s still so much more to come as the OPS continues to bring more data into Simply Stakeholders and implement its advanced features. This will unlock more efficiencies and insights for the team, and transform Simply Stakeholders into their go-to relationship data portal. 

Over the coming months, they plan to work through processes like information gathering, relationship mapping, and profile development. This will enable the team to analyze relationship-specific issues, identify causes of mistrust, map relationships for prioritization, and much more.

The Wrap Up

Simply Stakeholders are glad to have played a role in supporting Ottawa Police Service during a critical period and provide them with ongoing guidance as they implement new features and gain new insights into their stakeholder relationships.

Get a Demo Ready to try Simply Stakeholders for yourself? Reach out and book a personalized demo with our team! Book a Demo

One of the world’s largest furniture brands was looking for ways to promote cross- team effective collaboration. Frustrated by the limitations of spreadsheets and org charts, they chose Simply Stakeholders to map their internal relationships.

Challenge

Strategic projects often require close teamwork between members of different teams. But in this organization, with more than 200,000 employees spread across three independent business units and hundreds of teams, it was extremely challenging for individuals to assess who they should be working with.

Our contact at this company soon realized that a simple org chart wasn’t going to be enough. They needed:

• To show more than just job titles and a 2D representation of hierarchy
• The ability to search for people with specific skills, specialties, and preferences
• To see past roles and real-world, interpersonal relationships
• Access to a history of all interactions from previous collaborations
• To easily update the information, with people constantly changing roles, moving departments, completing training, developing new relationships, and participating in new projects

They had tried using spreadsheets, but quickly discovered that to capture the minimum required data, they’d need scores of columns, a long list of difficult-to-use filters, and an array of ad-hoc comments. And this solution would have no easy way to search or display data. In addition to this, editing spreadsheets is tedious and prone to errors, so individuals would avoid doing it, leaving the document static and out of date.

Our contact had also tried using a CRM. But this didn’t work because CRMs are built for tracking customers and deals, not internal relationships. They could really only associate a single person with a single role in a single team within a single business unit. There was no way to track organic relationships, past roles, skills, experience, and so on.

Solution

After hearing about Simply Stakeholders’ relationship management capabilities, the organization booked a demo and undertook an initial trial of the platform. They were keen to see if it would tick all the boxes for managing internal relationships to increase collaboration.

Some of the features and capabilities they were keen to implement included:

• Contact Records – Storing contact information for internal stakeholders, including role, location, and email address
• Multiple Organizations – Being able to see the entire organization or see each business unit separately
• 3D Network Map – Visualizing the relationships between stakeholders on a 3D map that shows how each individual is connected (including connections outside of their official role)
• Relationship Health – Generating a Relationship Health Score to analyze the health of relationships based on interaction history
• Linked Stakeholders – Linking individuals to multiple roles, teams, business units, and other individuals
• Tagging – Tagging individuals with relevant info, such as skills and preferences
• Full History – Recording a full history of paid interactions and collaborations
• Searchability – The ability to search all data records and interactions
• Easy Updates – The ability to easily add new contact records and interactions via email plugins and integrations

Outcome

Since implementing Simply Stakeholders, users within this company can easily identify opportunities for collaboration between team members — even members who work in separate departments or who have never met before.

With the 3D Network Map, users can see who each person knows and how they’re connected (beyond their official role and org structure). They can easily discover more detail by clicking on any person in the network to see a complete audit trail or all interactions and past collaborations, along with Relationship Health. Linking and tagging capabilities make it easy to see key information at a glance.

Best of all, because the data delivers real value and the system is easy to use (no matter how much data is added), the company has a live database of information that users will continue to update and maintain.

Simply Stakeholders looks forward to continuing to support this client with tools to manage their internal stakeholders and relationships!