In nonprofit Learning and Development, we depend on stakeholders to get our work done. But our stakeholders have their own priorities, so we often end up chasing, pushing, and sometimes telling ourselves that they don’t value our work.
In this episode of Learning for Good, I sit down with Carson Parrish, Director of Learning and Development at Seed Company, to talk about what it actually takes to work well with the stakeholders we depend on.
Collaboration starts long before the project does, with trust, real curiosity about what your stakeholders value, and an invitation to bring them all the way into the work.
▶️ Key Points:
00:00 Learning and Development Depends on Stakeholders
03:31 Carson’s Career Pivot from Law Enforcement to Nonprofit L&D
06:58 How to Build Effective Stakeholder Relationships
12:41 Engaging with Stakeholders
19:30 Managing Stakeholder Disagreements
24:42 How to Stop Chasing Stakeholders
Why Stakeholder Trust Matters in Learning and Development
L&D leaders do not need permission to have expertise. But we do need other people to do our jobs well.
We need subject matter experts to share what they know. We need leaders to tell us what is changing in the organization. We need managers and employees to help us understand where the work is getting stuck. We need stakeholders to review, decide, connect us to the right people, and make time for the process.
That is why collaboration shows up so often as an essential L&D skill. The quality of our work is shaped not only by what we know about learning, but by how effectively we can build relationships, use influence, and work with people across the organization.
At the beginning of episode 209 of the Learning for Good podcast, I compare the relationship to a key and a lock. The right key is useless without the lock, and the lock cannot fulfill its purpose without the key. L&D and our stakeholders bring different information, skills, and perspectives to the work. We need each other.
The challenge is learning how to make those pieces work together when priorities, personalities, timelines, and expectations do not line up perfectly.
Learn What Your Stakeholders Value Before You Design the Solution
Carson’s approach to stakeholder relationships grew out of his earlier work in recruiting and as an HR business partner. If he was recruiting for a function he didn't know well, he first had to learn the team’s business.
What does the team do? What are its priorities? What creates value? What matters to the people leading it?
He brought the same mentality into L&D. Before his team tries to show a stakeholder what learning can do, they spend time understanding what that stakeholder is trying to accomplish.
I think this is one of the simplest and most useful trust-building practices available to learning leaders. We can get so focused on explaining our process, solution, or expertise that we skip the more important opening question: What are you trying to do?
Then we can ask: How can what I do support that?
This changes the conversation from “Here is the learning thing I want you to pay attention to” to “I understand the work you are responsible for, and I want to help you move it forward.”
Set Stakeholder Expectations Before the Chasing Starts
Stakeholder problems often become visible late in the process.
You need content by Friday and have not received it. A review deadline passes. Someone changes direction after you have already built the first version. A stakeholder who wanted the training urgently is suddenly unavailable when you need decisions.
Carson’s first response to those situations is useful because he starts with L&D: What did we make clear on the front end?
Did we explain our instructional design or training development process? Did we share the specific asks we would have of the stakeholder? Did we identify when feedback and decisions would be needed? Did we tell them how a change in priorities could affect the timeline?
Those are not administrative details. They are part of the collaboration strategy.
A strong kickoff gives both sides a shared picture of how the work will move. It makes the stakeholder’s role visible before you need something from them, and it creates a more natural opening for them to tell you when the context changes.
That will not prevent every delayed response, but it reduces surprises that turn into chasing.
Keep Re-Enrolling Stakeholders When Priorities Shift
One thing I added during the conversation is that setting expectations once may not be enough.
Nonprofit work changes. A funding issue appears. Leadership changes direction. A new urgent priority takes over the week. The project that felt important at kickoff may be competing with something very different a month later.
That is why I like the idea of re-enrolling stakeholders throughout the work.
Remind them what you are building together. Reconnect the work to why it matters. Make the next ask clear. Revisit what you need from them and what they can expect from you. If the context has changed, adjust the plan together instead of pretending the original plan is still intact.
Re-enrollment keeps the relationship active. It also makes it easier to distinguish between a stakeholder who is genuinely disengaged and one whose attention has simply moved because the organization moved.
Do Not Turn Stakeholder Silence Into a Story
It's easy to create a story around an unresponsive stakeholder.
They do not respect L&D. They do not see us as strategic. They do not care about the project. They are making my job impossible.
Carson encouraged a more neutral starting point. There may be a responsiveness problem. There may be a workflow bottleneck. Priorities may have shifted. But before assigning motive, come back to the relationship and the work.
What did we agree to? What has changed? What do we need now? What can we do to make the next step easier?
This matters because the story we tell ourselves affects how we enter the next conversation. If we show up already feeling dismissed or disrespected, it is much harder to stay curious, collaborative, and focused on the result.
A neutral interpretation does not mean lowering expectations. It gives us a better chance of solving the actual problem instead of reacting to an assumption about the person.
How to Push Back Without Damaging the Stakeholder Relationship
There are also moments when L&D needs to disagree.
A stakeholder may be asking for a workshop when the problem is not a training problem. The requested timeline may make good design impossible. The solution they want may not create the behavior change they actually need.
Pushing back is part of the job, but the relationship still matters.
Carson’s approach is to return to the shared purpose: What is the problem? What is the why? What are we trying to solve? What does the audience need?
When both sides can reconnect around the result, disagreement becomes less about defending a position and more about finding the strongest path forward.
That allows L&D to bring expertise to the table without making the stakeholder the problem. We can say, “Here is what I am seeing, here is why I think this approach may not get us where we want to go, and here is another way we could reach the outcome.”
That is still pushback. But it’s pushback in service of something both sides care about.
Bring Stakeholders Further Into the Learning Process
One of the most interesting examples from Carson was the way Seed Company expanded stakeholder involvement through a content author community of practice.
Seed Company has about 350 employees spread across the globe, and Carson leads a relatively lean L&D function. His team knew it could not personally build every e-learning experience the organization might need.
So when the organization implemented a new learning management system, Carson invited leaders to identify people in their functions who had both the willingness and capacity to become content authors.
L&D then trained those employees on fundamental content authoring and learning design practices. They created a checklist, a sandbox environment, regular meeting rhythms, and opportunities for the L&D team to review work before launch.
While the employees did not become full-time learning designers, they brought their subject matter expertise into the process, with a stronger understanding of how to build learning.
For the L&D team, that created additional capacity. For stakeholders, it created more ownership. And for the organization, it built learning capability beyond the formal L&D function.
What stood out to me was how fully Carson’s team invited stakeholders into the work. They gave employees the skills, tools, and ongoing support to contribute to learning across the organization. That involvement could continue well beyond any one project.
Build a Stakeholder System That Makes Collaboration Easier
Carson was clear that none of this means his team never has to chase anyone. They do.
The goal is not perfect stakeholder behavior. The goal is a system and a relationship that make the inevitable friction easier to navigate.
Learn what people value before you make the recommendation. Set expectations before you need the response. Keep re-enrolling stakeholders as priorities move. Approach silence with curiosity before assigning motive. Push back by returning to the shared outcome. And look for opportunities to build shared ownership instead of keeping all learning expertise inside L&D.
That is how trust compounds.
Over time, Carson has seen the relationship at Seed Company move from L&D pushing its work into the organization to stakeholders pulling L&D in and asking for help. That is a meaningful signal. People know what the team can provide, trust how it works, and see value in collaborating with them.
You may still send the follow-up email. But the relationship around that email can feel very different.
To hear the full conversation, listen to Episode 209 of Learning for Good: How to Chase Your Training Stakeholders without Looking Desperate with Carson Parrish.
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How Nonprofit Training Leaders Can Stop Being Reactive and Start Driving Learning Strategy
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