Key points

• Service users are key stakeholders in voluntary organisations.
• There are growing pressures to increase the involvement of service users in deciding policy and running the organisation.
• Surveys of users are an important means of finding out more about their relationship to your organisation.
• User involvement initiatives can be categorised as either consumerist or democratic.
• Voluntary organisations need to find their own particular solutions to the problems posed: there are no 'off-the-shelf' solutions.