Stakeholder Input
Three hours on Zoom. Nobody expects to leave energized.
Except when they do.
"A tremendously well-organized, interactive, and productive session."
"I can't believe how the time flew by."
"We aren't alone. There's a greater network out there already doing great things."
We specialize in online stakeholder input sessions that bring together key voices across agencies, sectors, and communities. The process surfaces clear priorities and actionable recommendations while building the trust and shared ownership that makes implementation possible.
At every step, participants know what's happening with their input: how it's being collected, what patterns are emerging, and how it connects to the decisions ahead. No black box. No wall of notes that disappears after the session.
Status shapes who speaks. Comfort shapes who stays engaged. Most processes don't account for either, and the input reflects that. What you get isn't representative. These are structural problems, and they're solvable by good design.
What We Do
We design and facilitate online stakeholder input sessions built around the decisions you need to make.
The process surfaces clear priorities and actionable recommendations from across your full stakeholder group, including the people who are usually quiet, cautious, or at the margins. It produces outputs you can use directly in reports, strategy documents, and funding requirements. And it builds the kind of shared ownership that makes implementation easier.
If you're running a coordinated planning process, a coalition convening, a public comment requirement, or a community needs assessment, this is built for you.
We Get Accurate Input
The core design challenge in any stakeholder process is power. Status, role, and organizational position shape who speaks, what they say, and what others are willing to agree with publicly.
We use the Design For Transformation Framework to structure engagement that manages these dynamics directly. The framework translates what works in leadership coaching into group design: how people learn, how they make meaning together, how a room full of individuals becomes a group that can see what they're capable of doing together.
In practice:
Multiple modes of participation. Writing, talking, voting, prioritizing. The process doesn't advantage people who are comfortable speaking in groups.
Strategic anonymization. Ideas are evaluated on their own terms, not filtered through who said them.
Randomization and mixing. Participants are grouped in ways that reduce status-based clustering and surface connections across organizations.
Iteration. Participants return to ideas multiple times in different formats. Thinking deepens. Patterns emerge across the whole group, not just the vocal center.
This is how you hear from people who would otherwise stay quiet. And how you see what the group actually thinks, rather than what its most visible members think.
Creating an Experience That Advances the Collective Work
During the session, we share emerging results back with the group so people can react, refine, and clarify. Participants aren't dropping their thoughts into a black box.
When we asked participants what they were taking away from a transportation planning session, they said:
"Hope."
"Inspiration."
"Renewed enthusiasm on the topic."
"New relationships."
"Less silos means collaboration for greater, less repetitive work."
On the surface, the goal was functional: gather input, identify barriers, generate ideas. That's what the funder needed. What participants got was something they didn't expect.
This is what a session designed with participant experience at the center produces. And it's also why these sessions often become a touchstone for organizations working on related issues, creating shared language and alignment that persists long after the session ends.
Because people can see themselves in the results, trust in the process goes up and “survey fatigue” goes down. Participants start to notice how many others share their concerns and commitments, and a sense of collective ownership over the next steps begins to form.
These sessions often become a touchpoint for multiple agencies or organizations working on related issues, creating shared language and alignment they can all draw from.
Outputs That Plug Directly Into Your Work
We co-design the session with your reporting and decision requirements in mind.
The questions we ask map directly to your documents. The data we collect, through polls, writing prompts, ranking, and clustering, gives you both quantitative and qualitative input, clearly sorted, ranked, and themed. Much of what you need is in a ready-to-use format by the end of the session.
Instead of spending weeks interpreting notes, you leave with:
-
Transparent, data-driven outputs
-
Clear visualizations of what the group thinks and prioritizes
-
A shared record participants can see themselves in
-
Documentation your team can act on without additional processing
How We Work Together
Design
Clarify decisions, understand your context, and map a bias-aware online process that leads to the outputs you need.
Delivery
We facilitate the online session, manage all tech and tools, and guide participants through a clear, inclusive process.
Debrief
Review what emerged, connect it to your decisions, and leave with ready-to-use outputs and clear next steps.
Who This Is For
If you're running any of the following, this process is built for your context:
-
Coordinated planning processes with multi-agency or cross-sector stakeholders
-
Coalition convenings where you need alignment before moving to action
-
Public comment or community input requirements tied to funding or policy
-
Needs assessments where lived experience needs to inform program or system design
-
Any process where you need input from people with different levels of power, comfort, and proximity to the decision
We Intentionally Design For
A clear positive vision-Why are we doing this? What are we trying to build together?
Moments where participants see how many others care about the same things
Structures that support honest listening and psychological safety
Opportunities for connection and collaboration across roles and organizations
Time and again, participants let organizers know-
“This gave me hope.”
“I don’t feel as alone in this work anymore.”
“I didn’t realize how many people are pulling in the same direction.”
"A a tremendously well-organized, interactive, and productive session!"
" I really appreciated the seamless facilitation and everyone's thoughtful contributions."
"Great collaborative process with lots of voices in the room."
As a result, you get the input you need, and people leave more connected, more confident, and more ready to act.
Case Studies
We've facilitated stakeholder input across public sector planning, coalition building, community advocacy, and public health.
Jefferson County Coordinated Transportation Plan
St. Lawrence County Coordinated Transportation Plan
The counties needed community input to inform a revised 5-Year Coordinated Transportation Plan. The challenge wasn't just gathering input; it was ensuring it came from those most affected by transportation barriers, including people navigating healthcare access, employment transitions, and unreliable or unaffordable transit.
Previous public input efforts had felt disconnected from real action. Engagement was low. Decision-makers weren't showing up.
We facilitated sessions where participants led discussions across four themes: Underserved Populations, Employment and Education Access, Medical Transportation Gaps, and Community-Specific Concerns.
Rather than identifying problems only, participants collaborated to develop solutions. Structured digital tools replaced post-its and flip charts, capturing ready-to-use insights in real time.
Outcomes
➡A revised 5-Year Plan incorporating key barriers, solutions, and recommendations directly influencing policy and funding priorities
➡ Higher engagement: many participants stayed longer than planned
➡ Reduced staff workload since structured outputs were implementation-ready
➡ Community-driven solutions grounded in the experience of those most affected
One of the best meetings I have had to solve the transportation issues in Jefferson County!
Well organized, options to participate at levels of personal interest
OUTBermuda wanted to meaningfully engage LGBTQ+ Bermudians living both on-island and around the world to shape the vision and priorities for Bermuda Pride 2023. They sought a safe, inclusive way to explore the emotional complexity of the theme Homecoming, while gathering real input to guide programming decisions and ensure broad ownership of the event.
We designed and facilitated a large-scale stakeholder input session bringing together community members across time zones. Participants engaged in real-time polling, topic-based breakout discussions, and collective sharing to surface shared values, needs, ideas, and hopes.
Outcomes
➡Broad community ownership of the Homecoming theme
➡Increased clarity for Pride programming and sponsorship alignment
➡Activation of topic groups to carry work forward
➡A strengthened global network of Bermudians and allies ready to participate
Productive, Positive, Progressive
Fun, informative, and connected
Oral Health Coalition
New York’s oral health system faces barriers in access, workforce capacity, and care coordination. The coalition had already developed the Barriers to Bridges Report, and the next step required moving from recommendations into collaborative action. The goal of this convening was to begin implementation by creating alignment and prioritizing the most impactful opportunities.
We designed and facilitated a half-day virtual convening that brought together leaders across public health, dental and medical care, education, disability services, and community advocacy. The session focused on building shared understanding, strengthening collaboration, and establishing clear ownership for next steps.
Outcomes
➡Five activated workgroups were launched to move from vision to coordinated action, each focused on a major priority area identified in the statewide workforce report.
➡Consensus on 2025 implementation priorities
➡Identified resource needs and partnership opportunities
➡Clear community leadership and accountability structure
➡A year-long roadmap for continuing the work and reconvening in Fall 2025
➡Renewed connection, creativity, and commitment
➡A co-created reflective poem, The Road Ahead, that captured the collective voice of participants and served as a symbolic outcome of the session; transforming shared commitment, hopes, and momentum into a unifying expression of purpose.
.png)
NYMAC
Family Input Session on Newborn Screening Outcomes
NYMAC was looking to hear directly from families who had received newborn screening diagnoses, to understand needs beyond medical outcomes, and to shape a national framework for measuring what helps families thrive over time.
We designed a 2-hour virtual listening and co-learning session bringing together 10–15 families with diverse diagnostic journeys from across the region. The session used structured storytelling, small-group facilitated dialogue, and real-time synthesis tools to identify themes and insights grounded in lived experience.
Outcome
➡A prioritized set of family-defined outcome themes to inform federal measurement development
➡Increased connection and reduced isolation among participating families
➡Clear insights into barriers and supports that affect long-term thriving
➡Strengthened trust between families and public health research teams.The insights generated are now being used by NYMAC and RTI to build a tool that will shape newborn screening policy and resource allocation nationwide.
➡A collective poem was created from the exact words families shared, capturing their lived experiences, the emotional reality of navigating newborn screening, and what thriving means in their own language. This poem became a grounding artifact reflecting shared meaning