High-quality feedback loops can play an important role in helping nonprofits and philanthropy advance their commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). At its best, feedback allows organizations and funders to hear diverse perspectives, practice inclusive engagement, and shift systems, structures, and power in response to inequity. But feedback isn’t always practiced through an EDI lens, and many organizations with a commitment to EDI may not fully understand the power of feedback loops to shift culture and transform relationships in ways that advance equity.
Fund for Shared Insight welcomes you to this new space where we will be exploring the relationship between feedback and EDI. Through a series of stories and blog posts on our own website and in partnership with other organizations and publications, we hope to spark discussions that will challenge preconceptions and raise awareness of feedback loops as a way to value the lived experience of the people at the heart of our work and engage them as partners in making lasting, meaningful change. Our colleagues at Feedback Labs will also be sharing their own content on the topic, and we’ll both be using the hashtag #Feedback4Equity. We hope you’ll be part of the conversations. Please check back as we add content and links and follow us on social media.
EDI at the 2020 Shared Insight Gathering: Some Tips
Discussion about #Feedback4Equity issues and a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion extend, of course, to Fund for Shared Insight’s own work. As we plan our 2020 Shared Insight Gathering, a biennial, national feedback conference, we are implementing and sharing these tips for creating and hosting meetings and presentations that reflect and align with the foundational and cross-cutting values around #Feedback4Equity. We are also using resources offered by the Vera Institute for Justice to design events for people with disabilities and deaf individuals. We look forward to more learning around how best to integrate and embody EDI values in our organizational practices and the programs we sponsor.
For One Career-Prep Nonprofit, Accessibility Means Supporting Students Along Multiple Pathways to Economic Mobility
At Genesys Works, the Listen4Good feedback process has led to changes in messaging and programs and encouraged leaders to dig into demographic data, validating their focus on access and inclusiveness.
Asking the Hard Question: Does Our Feedback Work Promote Equity?
Read a Feedback Labs blog post by leaders of our Listen4Good team, Valerie Threlfall and June Wang, to learn how high-quality feedback, fully embraced, offers a productive path towards greater inclusion and equity.
Feedback Can Be a Catalyst for Shifting Power and Making Big Changes
Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy op-ed by our co-chairs, Kelley Gulley, senior program officer at the James Irvine Foundation, and Fay Twersky, vice president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and see why “Grant makers and nonprofits that hope to promote equity around the world would be wise to embrace the feedback movement.”
Listening to the ‘Whole Person’ Aligns Client-Feedback Program with Community Funder
Greater Boston Legal Services and its clients are benefiting from #Listen4Good feedback work, but so is L4G co-funder The Boston Foundation as they all work together “to serve, listen to, and partner with clients.”
Through Listen4Good, People with Disabilities Have Their Voices Heard
For years, SRVS, a nonprofit in Memphis, Tennessee, surveyed the families of clients and other stakeholders. Now the organization also collects feedback directly from the people with disabilities that it serves, increasing their power and agency.
Insights from an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Journey
See Melinda Tuan’s post published by the Center for Effective Philanthropy that reflects on Shared Insight’s own EDI journey.
Feedback Through an Equity Lens Serves Diverse Students on Their Way to Tech Careers
“Draft Day” at Genesys Works shows how the nonprofit puts the spotlight on students, student voice, and moving together toward positive outcomes.
Feedback Reminds Arts Nonprofit to Make Sure Its Studio Doors are Open to All
The Art Effect created MAAP after feedback from Listen4Good surveys made it clear the organization needed to do a better job serving a diverse student population and aligning its offerings across its programs.
