Research key people

Other

Project

Research sustainable cooperation key persons and municipalities

Client

Pharos

Duration

March - June 2023

Product

Research, strategy session, influence strategy

Project description

Good cooperation between the municipality and key persons is effective for the extent to which newcomers connect within the local community. Key persons fulfill a so-called "bridge function. As professionals, they deploy their lived experience as newcomers with:

Supporting newcomers to find their way in NL.
Educate organizations, professionals or municipalities on how to properly connect with newcomers.
Building a bridge between the worlds of newcomers and the Dutch context.

However, working with key people is not always a matter of course for municipalities. There is often no anchoring in municipal policy. Moreover, many key people receive little or no pay for the work they do. Together with Pharos, we conducted research into possibilities to develop sustainable collaborations between municipalities and key personnel.

Results & insights

Research
The research with Pharos consisted of in-depth interviews with key people and so-called champions (professionals who are committed to sustainable collaborations with key people) about the experiences of their successes and setbacks. This was supplemented with data from desk research on effective influencing strategies and previous research on collaborations between municipalities and key people.

Strategy session and action agenda
In a joint session, we translated the insights from the research into 9 concrete strategic actions. With these, Pharos can stimulate sustainable collaborations between municipalities and key people.

Relevant articles

Integration

Article in Allegiance on the Role of Key People

Journalist Marieke Buijs wrote an article in Trouw about the role of key people. She looked into the work of...

Integration

Article in Allegiance on the Role of Key People

Journalist Marieke Buijs wrote an article in Trouw about the role of key people. She looked into the work of...

All posts

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This project was supervised by:

project manager

Liv Kaya Aabye – de Hoop

All-round consultant

They also participated in this project

Jolien de Vries

Action Researcher

Eva Halverhout

Community builder & researcher