Listen4Good
Listen4Good is an independent capacity-building program launched by Fund for Shared Insight that supports organizations to listen and respond to community using equity-informed feedback principles.
Listen4Good Grows Into Its Own
Fund for Shared Insight created Listen4Good in 2016 as part of our efforts to promote high-quality listening and equity-driven feedback practices across the social sector.
Since then, more than 1,250 nonprofits and government agencies have used Listen4Good’s survey-based methodology and comprehensive supports to harness the power of direct feedback and center the voices of those least heard.
For the first four years, Shared Insight provided capacity-building grants to organizations that participated in Listen4Good, while also providing seed funding for Listen4Good to test and grow its design and delivery methods.
In 2020, Listen4Good introduced a new fee-for-service model. For a modest fee, paid by participating nonprofits or sponsoring funders, Listen4Good’s feedback tools, resources, and coaching were open for the first time to all nonprofits.
In 2023, Listen4Good spun out from Shared Insight under separate fiscal sponsorship, and three years later it became an independent nonprofit.
What Listen4Good does
Listen4Good supports organizations to gather, interpret, and act on feedback from the people they serve.
Through practical tools, coaching, and peer learning, organizations use feedback to:
- Improve and protect program quality
- Ensure services remain relevant and equitable as needs change
- Make informed decisions when resources are constrained
- Demonstrate impact with confidence
- Strengthen trust with communities
Listen4Good for Funders
Funders are invited to sponsor cohorts of grantees to participate in Listen4Good. Nearly nine out of 10 sponsoring funders say they would recommend Listen4Good to their peers.
Listen4Good also supports funders in convening participating nonprofit leaders and using community trends data to inform grantmaking.
By engaging with Listen4Good, funders
- Strengthen grantee effectiveness while building grantee capacity
- Redistribute power, learning alongside grantees as partners in listening to community and client feedback
- Advance their own philanthropic goals related to equity and social justice
- Enhance listening practices in service of equity; and
- Have the potential to draw on community data to inform grantmaking, strategy development, and evaluation
Related Items
- Fund for Shared Insight
