Could your organisation benefit from becoming a stakeholder of CHAIN?

CHAIN is an international mutual support network for people working in health & social care. It was established 14 years ago under the NHS research & development programme in London, and has grown steadily ever since. This is possible because the costs of running the network (paying for the online directory and associated computing; addition and maintenance of records; sending targeted messages; circulating questions on behalf of members; etc.) are borne by a consortium of stakeholders. These are the organisations whose logos, (with links to their own websites), can be found on the CHAIN homepage, and they are all either public, voluntary, or educational, or not-for-profit sector entities that are widely respected. They have become CHAIN stakeholders because they recognise the value added by our mutual support network, and they value the opportunities which being a sponsor of CHAIN brings to them. These include the right to create a new special interest group within CHAIN on a subject of relevance to the stakeholder; the ability to make use of CHAIN as a dissemination conduit for messages which might be of interest to network members; the chance to make regular use of the ideas and opinions of CHAIN's almost 15,000 members (click here to see analysis of the membership); and the fact that being a stakeholder of CHAIN, (an international, multi-professional network in health care), signals to both the CHAIN membership and the wider world that the stakeholder organisation is a leader in its field and shares its role as stake-holder of CHAIN with other prestigious organisations from the UK and beyond.

Stakeholders can support the whole network, or focus their resources and interests on just one part of CHAIN. For example, the National Institute for Health Research focuses on members whose main interest is R&D or evidence-based practice. Similarly Macmillan Cancer Care focuses on people whose main interest is cancer care and services. NHS Scotland supports the whole of the network in Scotland, and other 'national' stakeholders have a similar role in the context of the overseas components. If they wish, stakeholders can establish new sub-groups, signalling their leadership on a particular topic area or issue, and they can take full advantage of CHAIN as a dissemination vehicle to raise and reinforce their national and international profile. Because the costs of CHAIN are not great, due to its development being paid for years ago, and the fact that it is a very lean organisation with just two full-timers and a job-share - (in total 3 whole time equivalents work on the network), and our computing costs are kept small by using a university as our host, becoming a stakeholder is not prohibitively expensive, with the cost of a small stake-holding held at £5,000 per annum for the foreseeable future.

Stakeholder organisations may be as proactive, (or as benign), as they wish, however even the most reticent new stakeholder inevitably introduces new people, ideas and energy into our network, so we are always pleased to welcome them on board. Not only does their involvement share the cost of CHAIN more widely, but by increasing the diversification of our income stream it makes our network more resilient, and less susceptible to the turbulence of the environment and times. CHAIN's first stake-holders came on-board 10 years ago, when our 'host' organisation was abolished, and we needed support to keep the network alive. Since then the membership of CHAIN has increased six-fold, and the number of stake-holders has risen from 1 to 7. If your organisation might be interested in becoming a stake-holder of CHAIN please have a conversation with us. No pressure is applied, as we only want organisations that fully understand what we are trying to do, and whose own aspirations coincide significantly with those of CHAIN, and who genuinely wish to be a part of our collaboration.

To set up an informal, exploratory telephone conversation, e-mail David Evans, Founder/Director of CHAIN at: enquiries@chain-network.org.uk Thank you.