When members of the feedback community unite, amazing things happen. Over the past 18 months, a small group of feedback champions that call themselves the “Irritants” (as in irritants for change!) have been working together to find ways to encourage nonprofits to continuously improve how they listen and respond to the people they seek to serve. On Friday, they launched How We Listen, a new initiative that invites nonprofits to share their feedback practices.
How We Listen invites nonprofits to reflect on how they listen to the people who they seek to serve.
Do they collect feedback? How? How do they use the feedback they collect, who do they share it with, and what changes has it contributed to? How We Listen offers nonprofits a space to share the challenges they face in collecting feedback, and guides them to resources that can help them overcome those challenges. It’s a fantastic opportunity for nonprofits to expand their profiles on both Candid and Charity Navigator, share details of their feedback practices with others, and access resources to help them improve how they respond to the people they seek to serve.
How We Listen is the result of deep collaboration among members of the feedback community. It’s based on the Core Principles of Constituent Feedback, which many members of the feedback community helped to create.
And the “Irritants,” comprised of BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Bridges Fund Management, Candid, Charity Navigator, Development Gateway, GlobalGiving, Jessie Ball duPont Fund. Keystone Accountability, Listen4Good/Fund for Shared Insight, Outsell Inc and 60 Decibels, supported by Feedback Labs, have woven feedback expertise and the reach of individual platforms together to create a powerful new opportunity for nonprofits to gain recognition for better listening.
This is a fantastic step toward creating a world where organizations that listen and respond well to the people they seek to serve are rewarded, and those who want to get better at it are supported to improve. We’re proud of the deep commitment to creative collaboration that so many feedback champions have brought to this initiative. It’s an exciting day for feedback.
Nonprofits should head over to www.guidestar.org/update today to get started on sharing how they listen!
