Citizen Feedback Tool: GreatNonprofits Talks to the World Bank

Crowdsourced Citizen Feedback

January, 2014

Hurricane Katrina

Lack of On-the-ground Information

New Systems Information Model

Why Citizen Feedback Matters

1. Quality of services can reliably be measured from the perspective of the user.

2. Feedback from the user can provide insight into how to improve programs.

Why Citizen Feedback Matters

“I believe that nonprofits need to adopt a similar perspective and make sure that continuous improvement is part of their operation.” - James D. Power, formerly of J.D. Power & Associates.

A Citizen Feedback Tool for Nonprofits

• 1.8mm Nonprofit & project profiles

• >5,500 US City & Issue Pages

• ~200,000 reviews• >19,000 Nonprofits

OUR MISSION Help inspire and inform prospective donors and

volunteers Enable great nonprofits to harness their most

authentic and most effective advertising – the stories of the people they served

Promote greater nonprofit excellence through feedback

OUR PARTNERS

Our Mission & Partners

In The News

“GreatNonprofits focuses on helping people make great giving decisions through socially sourced feedback and reviews. Increasing the amount and quality of information available to donors will ultimately make giving easier, more effective, and rewarding.” – Bill Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The website GreatNonprofits allows users to review and comment on charities, much like Yelp does for reviews of restaurants or stores.

Sites such as GreatNonprofits are trying to use crowdsourcing to generate better information about which charities really work.

Content syndication partnerships across nonprofit information platforms to audience

of 20million

Open Syndication of Content

Developing Countries Utilizing Tool

Primary usage in North America. We also have nonprofits doing work in on developing countries that use our platform. Such as in:

Africa:GhanaMalawiNigeriaRwandaUganda

Asia:BangladeshPhilippines

Latin America:Dominican RepublicHondurasJamaica

This is a partial list

Nonprofit & Project Profiles

- Tymesha T. Client served at Family Scholar House

Sample Beneficiary Review

Sample Donor ReviewCambodian Children’s Fund

Sample Donor ReviewCambodian Children’s Fund

“The Cambodian Children's Fund (CCF) serves among the most poor and at risk children in Cambodia…Domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse and pedophilia are some of the problems many of the children face on a daily basis. The transformation of the children's lives is so dramatic…The children learn Khmer, English, computer skills and receive vocational training in addition to going to public school. They also receive free medical and dental care. I now sponsor one of the little girls at CCF and have encouraged my investment firm, Sterling Stamos Capital Management, to provide annual funding as part of our corporate giving program.”

Nonprofit Case Study Program Improvements

Nonprofit Case Study Program Improvements

“What interested us in being open to reviews from our constituents is really the desire to improve our services. Without hearing feedback about what we’re doing well and what we can do better, we really can’t make improvements in how we serve our kids.” – Nicole Molinaro, Fmr Executive Director of Communities in Schools Pittsburgh, PA.

Lessons Learned 1. Feedback needs to

be easy, fast and inexpensive to collect. Nonprofits should not need to hire a PhD or outside consultants to do this. Nonprofits do not want to take on another large and expensive operational burden. Unless it can be done in-house with existing staff resources, it will not be sustainable.

2. Feedback needs to be easy to understand - for everyone. Low-income people should be able to submit feedback; nonprofit staff should be able to easily take action based on the feedback and an external audience of donors and volunteers should be able to understand the information as well. It needs to be easy enough for all these audiences to understand what the feedback means.

Lessons Learned

3. Feedback needs to be dynamic, and part of continuous management improvement. It should be on-demand - beneficiaries should be able to provide feedback when they want to. And social programs can encourage this process by inviting their beneficiaries - by email or other means - to provide feedback. If the feedback is negative, it benefits the organization to follow-up more in depth and find out why the beneficiary is dissatisfied.

Lessons Learned

4. Feedback should not be edited. It may be tempting to remove feedback that is perceived by staff to be inaccurate. Just remember- feedback by its very nature, is subjective – and keeping the voice of the beneficiary as it is, is vital to the integrity of the information and process.

Lessons Learned

5. Feedback should be public. Beneficiaries become cynical when their responses are edited, or not visible to the public. As a result, beneficiary response rates decline over time. Public feedback, as long as the management of the organization can also get equal space and be able to respond to the feedback publicly as well, can hold everyone more accountable. It is far harder to ignore and not respond to feedback that is publicly posted online, than when the feedback is filed away in a cabinet.

Lessons Learned

Quality & Validity of Reviews

Objective & Findings Objective:

Create an open dialogue Foster a culture of honest and open feedback, where users

are less afraid of giving feedback Findings:

The majority of reviews are positive; but there are often criticisms, complaints and constructive feedback

Some international organizations that have initiated feedback programs, do get an equal number of complaints / compliments (such as the Danish Refugee Council in Somalia)

We encourage nonprofits to leverage constructive criticism to improve programs and drive transparency

See next page for sample reviews/constructive criticism.

“I would love to see more full-time staff positions to encourage a even greater level of loyalty and support year-round programming through study and work abroad opportunities.”

– writes a volunteer with Amigos De Las Americas “If I had to make changes to this organization, I

would go further to get feedback from the beneficiaries on what exactly are their problems and work together with them to help change their lives.”

- writes a supporter of the Malawi Project

Quality & Validity of Reviews “Samples”

Enables Project Staff Response

Either: Search your organizations name and claim the profile

Getting Started: search & claim your profile

STEP 2: Claim your organization.

Getting Started: search & claim your profile

Or: Add your organization manually

Getting Started: or manually add your profile

Go here: http://greatnonprofits.org/organizations/add

You may also contact support to be added at:[email protected]

INVITE REVIEWS

1 2 3

Getting Started: Invite Reviews

INVITE REVIEWS


• Send an email with your reviews page link to your• Citizens• Volunteers• Donors• Other non-paid

stakeholders


GET YOUR BADGE

Getting Started: Invite Reviews Using Website

Badge

Getting Started: Users Write Reviews

Future Tools

Your Challenges

Poor network coverage in rural villages Frequent power shortages that prevent

people from charging their cell phones. Illiteracy among the most vulnerable

beneficiaries means that they have to rely on third parties to deliver messages.

The wide diversity of dialects can sometimes cause communication difficulties

Example: Danish Refugee Council

Communication between aid workers and beneficiaries in Somalia through SMS has allowed the Danish Refugee Council to monitor and improve the way in which it delivers aid in the field.

Danish Refugee Council

Sample Outreach -Danish Refugee Council

Faa’iidada habkani dirista maasayjku u leeyahay ka faa’iidaysta yaasha

· Si fufud u isticmaalid — fariintaada u dir

numberkan +252 2 4000919, adigoo isticmaalyaaya moobilkaaga gacanta meelkastood joogto.

· Degdegsiinyo — ha sugin cidkale ee dir

waxaad rabto in aad tabiso ee maskaxdaada ku jira, dir xiligkasta oo aad jaanis u hesho in aad maasayj dirto.

· Kalsoonidda warkaaga — ha dhibsan in

aad gudbiso ceeb iyo cillo nuxurka ay leedahay fariintaadu, cidna waxba kuu raaci mayso.

· Natiijada fariintada — Codkaaga dhiibo oo

fikradaada ha la maqlo, haddaadan wax noo sheegin, ma ogaan karno ra’yigaag. Ka qaybqaado isbedelka horumarka socdo.

Benefits of the SMS beneficiary system:

· Simple to use — just send your comment from your mobile phone by texting to +252 2 4000919.

· Immediate — no waiting around, you can say what you want while it’s on your mind. Time flexible, send messages anytime convenient for you.

· Anonymous — no hassle, safe and if it’s a bad comment, there’s no confrontation and nobody to upset.

· Result! — Be heard and be part of the decision-making, if you don’t tell us, we won’t know. You can make a difference!

Appendix

Quality & Validity of Reviews, Cont. “I have been the sole care-giver for a poor sick

Cambodian friend and my friend has been treated at SHCH… The hospital does not have a very enlightened view of the value of complaints and has stated that they see them as destructive, unhelpful and disruptive. This uninformed view is in start contrast to widely accepted best-practice methods and models that place a high value on complaints as a key driver of ongoing healthcare quality improvement.”

- writes a friend of a beneficiary at the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope in Cambodia

Citizen Feedback Tool: GreatNonprofits Talks to the World Bank

Government & Nonprofit

Transcript of Citizen Feedback Tool: GreatNonprofits Talks to the World Bank