Section 6. Obtaining Feedback from Constituents: What Changes are Important and Feasible?

• What does it mean to obtain feedback from your constituents?

• Why should you obtain feedback from constituents?

• When should you obtain feedback from constituents?

• How to ask yourself the right questions

• Obtaining formal feedback: conducting a survey

 

 

Obtaining feedback from your community can help you understand people's needs, priorities, strengths, experiences, and perceptions of your organization. It can also help you identify barriers, evaluate programs, recognize unintended effects, and improve future work. This section explores ways to obtain formal and informal feedback from community members, participants, partners, and other stakeholders so that your group can learn and improve.

What does it mean to obtain feedback from constituents?

Obtaining feedback means asking questions or gathering information to better understand something you need to know. You might want to learn how people experience your services, whether your organization is accessible and trusted, what community priorities should receive greater attention, whether a program is working as intended, or what changes people believe would make the work more useful.

Feedback can be obtained in many ways, from informal conversations and observations to structured interviews, surveys, focus groups, listening sessions, and evaluation activities. Informal feedback can alert you to issues worth exploring further. Formal feedback uses a more systematic process so that responses can be documented, analyzed, and interpreted consistently.

Common methods include:

• Individual interviews
• Phone or video interviews and surveys
• Paper questionnaires
• Online surveys
• Focus groups and listening sessions
• Mixed-mode surveys that allow people to respond in more than one way

The term constituents, as we use it here, may refer to a variety of people, including people directly or indirectly affected by your organization's work, program participants, community members, coalition members, partners, elected officials, organizational leaders, journalists, service providers, funders, and others with a relevant connection to the effort. In many situations, more specific terms such as community members, participants, partners, or people affected by the work may be clearer.

Why should you obtain feedback from constituents?

• To understand how people experience and perceive your organization, program, services, or initiative
• To understand needs, priorities, strengths, barriers, and opportunities identified by community members themselves
• To help prioritize activities and resources
• To identify what is working well and what participants believe should change
• To have useful evidence available for planning, evaluation, grant proposals, reports, community communication, and questions from partners or media
• To identify gaps in awareness, communication, accessibility, participation, or trust
• Overall, to improve your program, organization, or initiative

Feedback is most useful when people know that their time and perspectives matter. Whenever possible, explain how the information will be used and communicate back what you learned and what, if anything, will change as a result.

When should you obtain feedback from constituents?

Informal feedback can be gathered as an ongoing process, while more formal feedback may be useful at particular points in the life of an initiative, including:

• During the planning process when you start an initiative
• Before starting or substantially changing a program
• During or after a particular program, event, workshop, campaign, or service
• Periodically throughout the life of your initiative, at intervals that fit the pace and purpose of the work
• When community conditions, policies, funding, staffing, or participation change significantly
• When earlier feedback or evaluation raises questions that need further investigation

Before collecting information, be clear about how you expect to use it. Repeatedly asking people for feedback without using it, explaining why it was not used, or reporting back what was learned can weaken trust and discourage future participation.

How to obtain feedback from constituents

Ask yourself the right questions

What do you want to know?

Gathering information takes participants' time as well as staff time, so focus on questions that will actually inform a decision, improve a program, evaluate progress, or deepen your understanding of the community.

For example, perhaps you have received funding to reduce unintended adolescent pregnancy in your community. The funding purpose may already establish the broad issue your program will address, but community feedback can still help determine what adolescents, parents and caregivers, educators, health professionals, and others see as priorities; what barriers young people encounter; whether information and services are accessible; how the program should be implemented; and how people believe progress should be assessed.

Who has already done this?

Check whether researchers, government agencies, community organizations, universities, health departments, schools, or others have already collected relevant and sufficiently current information. Existing surveys, administrative data, evaluations, public datasets, or community assessments may answer some of your questions or help you design your own work. Don't collect new information simply because you can; determine what gaps still need to be filled.

Who do you want to ask?

Decide whose perspectives you need in order to answer your questions. Different groups may have different experiences, responsibilities, or knowledge, and one group should not automatically be treated as speaking for another.

Possible respondents might include:

• People whose experiences, behaviors, circumstances, services, or access are relevant to the issue
• People and communities most directly affected by the problem or initiative
• Professionals and practitioners with relevant knowledge
• Administrators and organizational leaders
• Current or potential funders when their perspectives are relevant to the question
• Elected officials and public-agency representatives
• Journalists or community-information providers when relevant
• Researchers and subject-matter experts
• Members of your coalition, staff, volunteers, or organizational partners

Also decide whether you need feedback from a clearly defined group or whether an open invitation for comments is appropriate. An open survey or public comment form can be useful for gathering ideas and identifying concerns, but responses from people who choose to participate should not automatically be assumed to represent the entire community.

Be careful not to ask administrators, professionals, or community leaders to tell you what people most affected need when you can ask those people directly. Different sources of information can complement one another, but they are not interchangeable.

How many people would you like to ask?

The answer depends on your purpose. If you want feedback from every active member of a small coalition, you may be able to invite everyone. If you want estimates that represent a much larger population, you will usually need an appropriate sampling approach rather than simply surveying whoever is easiest to reach.

When representative results or comparisons among groups are important, consider getting help from someone with survey, evaluation, or statistical experience. Sample size alone does not guarantee accurate results; who is included, who responds, how questions are asked, and how the data are analyzed also matter.

How do you want to ask people?

Choose methods that fit your question, population, resources, accessibility needs, privacy considerations, and available contact information. Options include:

• Conversations with community members, participants, researchers, practitioners, partners, and others with relevant knowledge
• Physical or digital suggestion boxes and feedback forms
• Documenting recurring comments, questions, concerns, or suggestions that arise during community interactions
• Feedback forms connected with publications, newsletters, websites, programs, services, or events
• Online forms, QR codes, email, text-based feedback, or other digital channels when appropriate
• Designated feedback or reflection time during meetings
• A structured survey conducted online, on paper, by phone, in person, or through a combination of methods
• Interviews, focus groups, or listening sessions when you need deeper discussion

Good tips:

• Reduce bias and protect privacy. Explain the purpose of the feedback honestly, but don't tell respondents what answer you hope to receive. Avoid leading questions, protect confidential information appropriately, and offer anonymous responses when anonymity is feasible and useful.
• Keep your eyes and ears open. Feedback can appear in many places, including community meetings, public comments, complaints, service requests, protests, social media, evaluation findings, partner conversations, and everyday interactions. Consider whether these sources reflect broad community views or only particular experiences before drawing conclusions.
• Take unexpected feedback seriously. If community members tell you that your program isn't meeting an important need, is difficult to access, or is not viewed as relevant, examine the findings rather than immediately trying to change their opinion. Consider whether the program, strategy, communication, assumptions, or implementation should be revised.
• Close the feedback loop. When possible, tell participants what you learned, what decisions were made, what will change, and what cannot change and why.

Obtaining formal feedback: Conducting a survey

You've decided that a structured survey is an appropriate method for answering your questions. Before writing questions, make sure a survey is the right tool. Some questions are better answered through interviews, focus groups, administrative data, observation, community meetings, or a combination of methods.

Decide how you would like to conduct your survey

Surveys can be conducted online, on paper, by phone, in person, or through a combination of methods. Each approach has advantages and limitations, and the best choice depends on whom you need to reach, what contact information is available, the complexity and sensitivity of the questions, accessibility, cost, time, and the quality of information you need.

• Interviewer-administered surveys, whether in person or by phone, allow respondents to ask for clarification and can be useful when questions are complicated. However, interviewer tone, wording, or presence can influence responses. Interviews are generally not anonymous to the interviewer, although responses can still be kept confidential and identifying information can be separated from survey data when appropriate.
• Self-administered surveys, including online and paper surveys, allow people to respond privately and at a time that works for them. Online surveys can be quick and relatively inexpensive and may handle complex question paths more easily. Paper surveys can be useful when internet access or digital comfort is limited. Both require attention to accessibility, literacy, language, and whether the people you need to hear from can actually access the survey.
• Mixed-mode surveys allow people to respond through more than one method -- for example, online or on paper -- and can help reach people with different access needs and communication preferences. When comparing results over time, remember that changing survey modes can sometimes influence how people answer.

Participation should be voluntary unless there is a clearly explained institutional or legal requirement. Avoid describing a group as a "captive audience." If you distribute a survey during a class, meeting, service, workplace activity, or other setting where people may feel pressure to participate, make it clear whether participation is optional and whether declining will have any consequences.

Decide how to format your questions

Surveys often use both closed-ended and open-ended questions.

• Closed-ended questions ask respondents to choose from defined response options. These may include yes/no questions, multiple-choice options, frequency categories, or rating scales. Response options should fit the question, include the reasonable range of answers, and be written so respondents can understand the differences among them. If you're developing an important survey, test the questions and response scales with people similar to those who will complete it.
• Open-ended questions allow respondents to answer in their own words. They can reveal ideas, explanations, experiences, or concerns that predetermined choices may miss. They can also take more time for respondents to answer and more effort for researchers to review and analyze.
• Combining closed-ended questions with optional opportunities to explain or add comments can provide both structured information and room for perspectives you did not anticipate.

Reduce bias as much as reasonably possible

No survey is entirely free from potential error or bias, but careful design can reduce avoidable problems.

• Collect names or other identifying information only when you actually need them, and explain why they are being collected and how they will be protected.
• Avoid wording introductions or questions in ways that reveal the response you hope to receive.
• Avoid giving information immediately before a question if that information is likely to influence the answer unless providing it is necessary to the question's purpose.
• Avoid leading, loaded, double-barreled, or unnecessarily complicated questions.
• When measuring change over time, keep important question wording and survey methods as consistent as possible so that differences in the survey itself are not mistaken for changes in the community.
• Consider whether people who don't respond may differ in important ways from those who do. A large number of responses does not automatically remove nonresponse or sampling bias.

Protect participants, especially when questions are sensitive

Tell respondents what the survey is about, how long it is expected to take, how the information will be used, whether participation is voluntary, and what privacy protections apply. If questions involve trauma, mental health, substance use, discrimination, sexual health, violence, immigration concerns, or other sensitive topics, consider whether additional safeguards are needed.

When appropriate, allow respondents to skip questions they don't want to answer. Collect only the personal information you actually need, store it securely, and follow relevant organizational, legal, ethical, or research-review requirements.

Don't forget respect and accessibility

Thank people for the time and information they contribute. Use clear, respectful language and make the survey reasonably accessible to the people you hope to reach. Depending on the community, this may include translated versions, plain-language materials, screen-reader-compatible online forms, large print, telephone options, interpretation, or other accommodations.

Explain how results will be used and, when possible, make a summary of findings available to participants or the broader community.

Make it easy

Keep the survey as short as possible while still collecting the information you actually need. Participant burden matters. A useful rule is not to ask for information unless you know why you need it and how you plan to use it.

Make instructions and response options easy to follow, test links and online forms before launch, and make sure the survey works on devices respondents are likely to use.

Make responding convenient

Reduce unnecessary barriers to participation. For an online survey, provide a direct and accessible link or QR code. For a mailed survey, include clear return instructions and, when appropriate, prepaid return postage. For telephone or in-person surveys, offer reasonable scheduling options. If the community includes people with different access needs, consider offering more than one response method.

Interpret response rates carefully

There is no single "normal" response rate that applies to every survey. Response rates vary depending on the population, survey topic, method, length, contact strategy, incentives, trust, accessibility, and many other factors.

Monitor who is and is not responding rather than focusing only on the total percentage completed. A low response rate can raise concern that some perspectives are missing, but even a high response rate does not automatically guarantee representative results. When the findings will inform major decisions, consider sampling, nonresponse, coverage, measurement, and other possible sources of error when interpreting the results.

In Summary

Feedback helps community organizations understand how people experience their work, identify needs and strengths, improve programs and services, and make better-informed decisions. Feedback can be informal or formal and can be gathered through conversations, interviews, listening sessions, focus groups, surveys, digital tools, community meetings, and other approaches.

Good feedback processes begin with clear questions: What do we need to know? Whose perspectives are necessary? How will the information be used? What method will make participation practical, accessible, and respectful? When structured surveys are used, careful attention should be paid to sampling, question wording, privacy, accessibility, respondent burden, survey mode, and potential sources of bias.

Most importantly, feedback should not be collected simply to validate decisions that have already been made or to persuade people to agree with the organization. It should create an opportunity to learn. When community members take the time to share their experiences and perspectives, organizations should take that information seriously, communicate what they learned, and explain how it informed the work.