Institute for Social Ecology

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

Our programming serves activists and scholars in movements for racial and environmental justice across the United States and around the world. As a movement-driven educational organization committed to the practice of direct democracy, we are always seeking input from our students. Input from our extended community of students, supporters, affiliates and allied organizations plays a fundamental role in shaping the strategic direction of our organization, as well as the programs and courses we offer.

How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Community meetings/Town halls, Suggestion box/email,

How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals,

What significant change resulted from feedback?

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020, we had a number of strategic discussions with our broader community to determine how our organization could best serve movements for racial justice. In response to feedback from students, affiliates and allies, we created a new Racial and Environmental Justice program to offer new educational programming focused on the intersection of race, ecology and social movements. We hired renowned Black activist and Cooperation Jackson co-founder Kali Akuno to lead this program.

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners,

How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship?

By requesting feedback from our students, we are able to continually evaluate our educational programming and ensure that our curriculum meets our students' needs—both as learners and participants in social movements. Feedback we have received from supporters has played a catalyzing role in revising board practices, including formalizing rules around transparency, meeting rules and accountability. This in turn has helped to redistribute power within the organization, empowering those who have more recently been involved while de-centering members who have been with us for many years.

Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback,

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time,