As currency projects often rely on a large number of stakeholders, establishing shared goals from the outset and developing a picture of how different objectives might interact can be difficult.
A multi-stakeholder project requires ongoing consideration of each party’s needs and proficiencies. Some of the challenges that can arise include:
# Perception of risk
A large potential stakeholder may feel there is too much risk to get involved. For instance, a service supplier might show interest in a currency project’s objectives, but not be comfortable with taking part due to its relatively unknown status.
__Solution__: Stakeholders could begin with a soft entry into the field, for example, through accepting a currency for procured services, with the potential to engage more in the future.
# Slow decision-making
For example, the highly political environment and tight budgets associated with local authority engagement could stall the operations and decision-making process of a currency. Elections may mean a new administration, often with different aspirations and agendas.
__Solution__: This could be rectified by having a long-term and ring- fenced team working on the currency, able to mobilise funds and take some decisions autonomously.
# Differing ambitions
Different stakeholders may have distinct ambitions for the currency. An SME might join a mutual-credit system to increase their turnover in the short-term, whereas those responsible for implementing the project would have a more long-term vision where the financial self-sufficiency of the currency model depends on members’ continued trading.
__Solution__: A tight knitting-together of the skills and resources of the spectrum of stakeholders allows differing ambitions to be aligned collectively. A co-production approach can build or operate a project or service with an equal and reciprocal relationship between providers and users.
# See also - Contents - Co-producing a currency - Challenges of a multi-stakeholder project