Feedback Futures: How Charities Prioritise Stakeholder Input

When everything feels urgent, nothing is a priority. For many charity leaders, the challenge isn't a lack of ideas. It's a lack of a transparent way to choose between them.

Feedback Futures is a strategic tool for charities that turns a long list of stakeholder input into a ranked, community-led shortlist, using a participatory prioritisation framework.

Sometimes this includes a token voting approach. This is where stakeholders are given a limited number of digital or physical tokens to invest in specific options. This creates a transparent, documented decision trail for resource allocation and board reporting. It moves your charity from ‘we heard 40 things’ to ‘these 5 matter most to the people who use our services.’

When to Use Feedback Futures

• The Capacity Crunch: You have a long list of valid suggestions but only have the budget or staff time to act on three.

  
  

• The Buy-In Gap: You need staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries to feel ownership over a new strategic direction.

  
  

• The Board Challenge: You need a transparent, defensible story to explain to funders and trustees why you chose one project over another.

How to Run a Feedback Futures Session For Charities

1. Apply the mission filter: Before opening the vote, leadership must vet the options. Check each option against safeguarding, risk, and legal obligations, and make sure it aligns with your mission.

   
   

2. Include a “Do Nothing / Keep as-is” option: If it’s a genuine possibility, include an explicit option to keep things as they are (or to defer a decision). This prevents false choices and makes the results easier to defend with trustees and funders.

   
   

3. Set the Rules: Give each participant a set number of tokens (e.g., 10 tokens to spend across 5 options). This invites stakeholders to make the same trade-offs that you face as a leader.

   
   

4. Ensure Inclusive Access: Offer multiple ways to vote (e.g., online polls for the digitally active, and paper ballots or token jars for in-person sessions).

   
   

5. Audit the Equity: Use relational feedback mapping to see who voted. If a specific demographic is missing, run additional outreach to rebalance participation before finalising the results (in line with your consent and data protection policies).

   
   

6. Report the Why: Publish the results and the subsequent actions. "You prioritised X, so we have allocated our Q3 budget to Y."

   
   

Strategic Safeguard: Achieving Representative Intelligence

The true power of feedback futures lies in its ability to build representative intelligence. Rather than just counting votes, use participation checking to ensure your priorities reflect a representative sample of community value.

If you notice a gap in engagement, treat it as a strategic prompt to amplify quieter voices or extend your outreach. This ensures your final shortlist isn't just a result of who was most active on the day, but a better reflection of the wider community you serve, not just the loudest voices in the room.

Why This Matters for Charity Governance

Token voting turns a "wish list" into an impactful shortlist. It provides a clear answer when a board member or funder asks, "Why this project first?" By making the prioritisation process transparent, you’re more likely to build buy-in. People are much more likely to support a difficult resource decision when they can see the clear, documented rationale behind it.

Next steps: Managing information overload in your charity

Feedback Futures is the final piece of my Information Overload to Strategic Clarity series. To ensure your priorities are built on a solid foundation, pair this tool with:

• Relational Feedback Mapping: To ensure your voters represent your whole community.

• Feedback Fasting: To create the space to act on your new priorities.

• The Full Strategic Guide: From Information Overload to Strategic Clarity.

Make sure you check your funder requirements and your organisation’s GDPR, retention, and safeguarding policies. In the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office guidance is a good starting point for data protection and ethics.

Change doesn’t start with a workshop; it starts with one honest conversation.

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Note: These insights are based on practitioner experience and do not constitute legal or regulatory advice. Always review your specific funder contracts, data protection policies (GDPR) and safeguarding policies before making significant changes to operations. Examples are for illustrative purposes only; no official affiliation with the organisations or tools mentioned is claimed.