More and more nonprofits and funders are seeking participant feedback because, while experimental measures can surface the “what” of change, participant input can surface the “how and why,” and suggest concrete ways to improve. Such feedback can be an organization’s quickest and least expensive source of program insight and, when mixed with empirical metrics, can give the most nuanced picture of what helps or hinders participants’ success.

But the benefits of investing in participatory measures go even further: When we shared experience recently with 14 other nonprofits—that use survey and focus groups, participant councils, participatory action research, and more—we found that the process of building feedback mechanisms created more equitable practices across organizations and advocacy efforts. The impetus to seek stakeholder input in one area triggered an instinct to do so in others.

These findings matched our experience at Pace Center for Girls, a Florida-based multiservice nonprofit that serves girls with histories of trauma. On average, Pace and the nonprofits we studied reported a 27.4 percent higher commitment to inclusion (i.e. actively seeking input from all stakeholders) after implementing participatory methods, as well as a 17.4 percent increase in curiosity (a bias toward asking questions and seeking input) for decisions ranging from hiring to service delivery and technology investments. The most striking set of observations of this collective research, however, were nonprofit testimonies to the empowerment that participatory measures created in participants and community members themselves, and the will it stirred in them to change the systems standing in the way of their success.

Nonprofits in our focus groups and interviews told us they were collaborating with their participants to build an equity lens on advocacy in three important ways.

  1. Embedding Constituents in Research
  2. Creating Space for Constituents to Interrogate Findings
  3. Connecting Constituents to Legislators

Read the full article about listening to participants by Mary Marx, Lymari Benitez, Yessica Cancel, and Katie Smith Milway at Stanford Social Innovation Review.