ABOUT US

Stakeholder Management Software Built by Practitioners, for Practitioners

Simply Stakeholders is the stakeholder relationship management (SRM) platform built by people who have actually done the work: planned community engagements, managed complex stakeholder relationships, evaluated public consultations, and reported to senior decision-makers.

Founded in 2004 in Sydney, Australia, our company was established by Allison Hendricks, a civil engineer turned stakeholder management expert with over 30 years of hands-on experience in stakeholder engagement, community consultation, and environmental impact assessment. That practitioner DNA is embedded in everything we build, from our AI-powered sentiment analysis to our pioneering approach to stakeholder mapping.

Today, our platform is trusted by government agencies, energy and resources companies, corporates, health organisations, and non-profits across five continents to manage the relationships that matter most.

Expertise

Why Practitioners Choose Simply Stakeholders

Most stakeholder management software is built by technologists who have never run a community engagement or sat in a room full of concerned residents. Simply Stakeholders is different. Our platform was designed from the ground up by engagement professionals who understand the day-to-day realities of stakeholder work:

Built-in methodology: Our tools embed proven stakeholder engagement frameworks and best practices directly into the software, so teams follow a structured approach from stakeholder identification through to evaluation, not just record-keeping.
Practitioner-designed stakeholder mapping: We reimagined traditional mapping models (like the Power/Interest Grid) to create dynamic, actionable stakeholder maps that update as your engagement evolves. Our mapping approach goes beyond static quadrant diagrams to deliver real-time strategic insights on influence, impact, interest, and sentiment.
Evaluation built in, not bolted on: Our founder literally wrote the framework. The Simply Stakeholders Evaluation Framework, developed by Allison Hendricks over 15 years ago and adopted by organisations worldwide, provides a structured approach to measuring the quality of community engagement across principles of integrity, inclusion, deliberation, influence, capacity building, and sustainable decisions.
AI that understands engagement: We were early adopters of AI in stakeholder management. Our custom AI models are specifically trained for engagement data, detecting sentiment, surfacing emerging issues, summarising interactions, and automatically linking stakeholders and organisations mentioned in your notes.
Scales with your maturity: Whether you’re replacing spreadsheets for the first time or running enterprise-wide engagement programs across dozens of projects, our modular platform grows with you.

Latest thought-leadership posts and practical guides

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Values

The Code We Work By

Embrace & Drive Change

Change is inevitable. As we continue to grow, we believe our greatest advantage is not our strength or intelligence, but our ability to adapt. We continuously evolve our platform, and our thinking, to meet the changing needs of stakeholder engagement professionals.

Leave a Positive Impact

Our time is short. We want to be remembered for making our community, team, products, and profession better than they were before. Every feature we build is measured against this standard.

Be Passionate & Determined

We encourage our people to do work they’re passionate about. When you care deeply about stakeholder engagement outcomes, you build better tools, and enjoy the process.

Serve the Customer Like Family

We treat our clients like family. By making their lives better, we make a positive impact on communities and environments through them. That’s why our customer support is consistently rated among the best in the industry.

Expertise

Thought Leadership & Industry Expertise

Industry Leaders in Stakeholder Engagement

Simply Stakeholders isn’t just a software company, we’re active contributors to the stakeholder engagement profession. Our team brings deep expertise in areas where many organisations need guidance most:

Stakeholder Mapping Methodology

We’ve published extensively on stakeholder mapping methods, challenging the limitations of traditional models like the Power/Interest Grid and Mendelow’s Matrix. Our approach moves beyond static diagrams to provide dynamic, data-driven maps that are practical, actionable, and culturally sensitive. Explore our Guide to Stakeholder Mapping Methods to see how we’re advancing the field.

Stakeholder Engagement Evaluation

Evaluation is one of the most neglected aspects of stakeholder engagement, and one where Simply Stakeholders leads the conversation. Our founder developed the Evaluation Framework for Community Engagement and Public Consultation, a practical tool for assessing engagement quality across six principles: integrity, inclusion, deliberation, influence, capacity building, and sustainable decisions. The framework is available as a free eBook and has been tested across industries and university programs.

Best Practices & Professional Standards

Our content draws on established standards from the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Association of Project Management (APM). Our founder served as a committee member for IAP2 Australasia, and Simply Stakeholders is listed as a recommended tool on the Engagement Institute (IAP2 Australasia) website. We regularly publish in-depth guides, webinars, and eBooks on topics including stakeholder analysis, social licence, grievance management, ESG compliance, and stakeholder management plans.

AI & Innovation in Stakeholder Management

We were among the first stakeholder management platforms to integrate AI, starting with custom machine learning models for sentiment analysis and issue detection. Today, our AI capabilities extend to automatic interaction summaries, stakeholder and organisation detection, and data enrichment, all built with hosted models for data security and custom algorithms designed specifically for engagement data.

Our Story

Built on Decades of Real-World Stakeholder Engagement Experience

In April 2004, Allison Hendricks founded our company in Sydney, Australia, launching with our original product, Darzin, one of the first purpose-built stakeholder relationship management platforms in the world.

Over more than two decades, the platform has evolved through continuous feedback from practitioners on the front lines of community engagement. In 2018, we launched Simply Stakeholders as a streamlined version of our tools, designed to make professional-grade stakeholder management accessible to teams who were just getting started and needed a step up from spreadsheets and generic CRMs.

In 2023, we brought the full capabilities of Darzin into the Simply Stakeholders platform with optional modules that customers can add as their needs grow. And in 2024, we celebrated 20 years of innovation by launching our online community and hosting our inaugural Festival of Ideas.

Today, Simply Stakeholders serves organisations across government, energy and resources, corporate, health, and non-profit sectors on five continents. Our diverse, global team is united by a single mission: help organisations build better stakeholder relationships and make better decisions.

Meet Our Founder, Allison Hendricks, Stakeholder Engagement Expert & CEO

Simply Stakeholders was born out of my own experiences as a young graduate engineer in an environmental consultancy in Sydney.

One of the first projects I worked on was a controversial motorway project – the third time the government had tried to get an environmental impact assessment approved. Our first day, a full-page advertisement appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, signed by some of Australia’s more prominent voices, objecting to the proposal.

A community member had suggested a tunnel that would bypass the environmentally sensitive area. Because it would’ve been the longest road tunnel of it’s kind at the time, the idea wasn’t taken seriously. But as a civil engineering graduate, I knew that it wasn’t unfeasible. So I kept putting forward the suggestion.

At the final options selection meeting, the very senior executive of the government department asked the team if there were any other options to be considered. Reluctantly, the tunnel option was raised. But when the executive went around the room and asked us to point to the option we’d like to show our grandchildren we’d created, every person in the room chose the tunnel! So, he told us to go and make it happen. And the rest, as they say, is history… and we now have a lot of tunnels all around Sydney!

That experience taught me a fundamental lesson: when decision-makers have access to qualitative insights from the community, real voices, real concerns, real ideas, they make better decisions. But as I became more senior, I grew more distant from those voices. The tools of the day – spreadsheets and Access databases couldn’t capture the richness of engagement data or deliver it in a way that influenced strategy.

So I built Darzin, and later, Simply Stakeholders to bridge the gap between community voices and the people making the decisions.

Allison’s credentials:

Civil engineer (B.Eng) University of Sydney; MBA (Australian Graduate School of Management)
Over 30 years hands-on stakeholder relationship management experience
Former committee member, Insternational Association for Public Participation Australasia
Author of the Evaluation Framework for Community Engagement and Public Consultation
Speaker at major industry events

TRUST

See Why Leading Organisations Trust Simply Stakeholders

Ready to work with a stakeholder management platform built by engagement experts? Book a personalised demo and see how Simply Stakeholders can help your team map stakeholders, track sentiment, evaluate engagement, and report with confidence.

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Global

A Global Team, United by One Mission

We’re proud of our diverse team, spanning five continents with a rich mix of genders, cultures, and professional backgrounds. With dedicated hosting regions in Australia, Europe, the UK, Canada, and the USA, we serve organisations wherever stakeholder relationships matter.

Our platform is SOC 2 certified, ISO/IEC 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant, because the organisations we serve need to know their stakeholder data is secure and handled responsibly.

JOIN

Interested in Joining Simply Stakeholders?

We’re always looking for passionate people who care about stakeholder engagement, great software, and making a positive impact. Discover what it’s like to be part of our team.

Careers