In 2018, Fund for Shared Insight’s learning and evaluation partner, ORS Impact, surveyed the Listen4Good grantees that were one year into participating in the feedback initiative. The survey explored changes in feedback practice abilities, insights gained from client experiences; program changes based on client feedback; and the intersection between feedback practice and issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). ORS collected data from 55 of the participating nonprofits showing the 2017 L4G cohort gaining new insights and making positive program changes, but also demonstrating room to improve feedback practice and the level of staff and leadership commitment to the process.
Among the findings:
- The 2017 cohort’s feedback practice abilities largely stagnated or decreased from six months into the program to 12 months, wheras the 2016 cohort had reported significant improvement in their abilities during the same time period.
- Despite challenges in feedback practice abilities, organizations are learning about the experiences of their clients and translating those insights into improvements in programs and services.
- Many organizations see the connection between feedback practice and EDI and are pursuing it through inclusive feedback collection and proactive responses to group differences in feedback data.
- Almost all the organizations plan to continue collecting client feedback after L4G, but those plans may be challenged by a relatively low level of perceived commitment to the process among staff and leadership.
Listen4Good 2017 Cohort at One Year by ORS Impact is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Other Insights
- Sarah Stachowiak
- ORS Impact
