Communicating Change to Nonprofit Stakeholders

Abstract

Relationships with organizational stakeholders are especially problematic for nonprofits in times of planned change. Implementers of change initiatives must negotiate demands for their time and attention as well as attend to severe resource constraints. Interviews with nonprofit administrators are used as the basis for the development of six models of implementation communication adopted by nonprofit implementers in interacting with various stakeholder groups. The data are also used as a basis for theorizing about two communicative dimensions of the task situation—communication efficiency and consensus building—which may be used to predict implementers’ choices of approach to their communication with stakeholders.