If someone benefits from an action, you might call them a beneficiary. If someone is harmed by an action, you might call them a maleficiary (although that's not a common word). For example, "The charity's beneficiaries are local homeless people"
Is there a word for the whole category of people who might be affected (either positively or negatively) by an action?
The context in which I'm trying to use this is "It is important to think of your business's most important groups of ____, and whether they're being helped or harmed".
"Stakeholder" is similar to this meaning, although it has connotations more of people who are interested or involved in something formally, rather than people who are simply affected by it.