Guide for conducting inclusive stakeholder engagement

This guide gives an overview of how Meta conducts inclusive stakeholder engagement

What is this guide for?

This Guide not only outlines Meta’s approach to inclusive stakeholder engagement, but also offers actionable guidance for those interested in adopting similar practices. The Guide is designed to be a resource to develop and implement stakeholder engagement strategies. The Guide focuses on three core areas anchored in Meta’s inclusivity values, which act as “prompts” to consider while developing a stakeholder engagement strategy. Under each of the core areas, the Guide provides illustrative questions to inform concrete application. These are designed to provide examples of operational decisions that can be made when developing and implementing engagement strategies.

This practical resource is also tailored to assist professionals outside Meta – including small and large businesses, civil society organizations, government departments, and private companies. It is a valuable tool for those looking to understand and navigate meaningful stakeholder engagement, whether as part of stakeholder mapping, corporate social responsibility initiatives, human rights impact assessments, due diligence processes, risk assessments, compliance efforts or content policy development.

Who developed it?

The Guide is an output of the Content Policy Stakeholder Engagement team at Meta, with input from several internal cross-functional teams, external organizations and engagement specialists.

Why stakeholder engagement matters?

Stakeholder engagement helps us better understand how our policies, products and enforcement actions impact the people who use our services. From culturally sensitive content moderation to the inclusive development of the Metaverse, Meta’s policies, products, and actions directly affect billions of people from all backgrounds. We need to understand that impact, especially on marginalized communities often not included in policy discussions. This Guide represents a step towards embedding Meta’s inclusivity values - diversity, meaningful access, and equity - into a stakeholder engagement process.

Effective engagement requires planning and effort to understand the unique perspectives of stakeholders and to address their questions. The critical components of a successful engagement strategy include identifying relevant stakeholders, understanding their interests or concerns and establishing clear communication channels. The active engagement of a broad spectrum of stakeholders in the policy-making process helps ensure better outcomes and a positive experience for stakeholders in their engagement with the company. This approach enables us to gather and scrutinize policies against a comprehensive set of views, thereby strengthening our policies and contributing to user trust.

We seek to make stakeholder engagement a two-way street, benefitting the groups, individuals and experts we engage with. We also provide stakeholders with sufficient follow-up information, informing them of how their input helped shape Meta’s policies. This feedback helps build strong stakeholder relationships and ultimately policies that are more inclusive of all relevant opinions and perspectives.

Finally, we encourage stakeholders to give us their feedback on how we conduct stakeholder engagement.

Download our guide for conducting inclusive stakeholder engagement