At LIFT, we believe our members are the experts on their own lives. That’s why when working with LIFT staff, they drive the agenda in setting their goals and the path to achieving them. In 2013, this commitment to member-driven work led LIFT to implement Constituent Voice, a process for systematically gathering input from those we serve.
A big part of this process is asking our members to complete short surveys about the quality of LIFT services as well as their own social connections and personal well-being (e.g., resilience and self-efficacy) each time they come in. We analyze the responses to learn what we’re doing well and what we need to improve and to gauge members’ perceptions of their own strengths and weaknesses.
In addition, we match members’ survey responses against measures of their progress at LIFT (like the number of goals they’ve completed) to explore whether or not survey responses are related to member progress (spoiler alert: they are!).
A recent in-depth analysis of our Fiscal Year 2016 survey responses – conducted by an independent, third-party researcher – has provided reliable evidence that our intense focus on engaging members and building strong relationships has been vital in empowering members to achieve critical change for themselves and their families.
Check out the second blog in this series to find out just what we learned from our members over this past year!
For additional information on LIFT’s Constituent Voice process, check out our recent publication, Listening Better: 10 Lessons from LIFT’s Member Feedback Survey, or contact us at [email protected].