Feedback practitioners can agree that feedback creates opportunities for change. It can break down barriers and create equal access to resources that marginalized communities might otherwise not have. To help drive this change forward, Thrive For Good presented at a recent LabStorm looking for feedback on ways to better position themselves to make an even bigger impact.

Thrive for Good is a nonprofit organization that works to empower communities to help eradicate extreme poverty. With 2 billion people – 33% being children – not receiving enough nutrients to reach their full potential and fight disease, Thrive aims to help communities grow Life Gardens so that a nutrient-dense diet isn’t out of reach for people living below the poverty line. Life Gardens are an essential part of Thrive’s work. The organization hosts five-day workshops to teach people how to grow healthy food and sustain those gardens for the future. Furthermore, Thrive provides training through the Thrive Institute so that community members and partner organizations can reach more communities and help create more access to healthy food.

Thrive aims to scale up and impact 50 times more people by expanding to six other regions around the world, certifying Growing Health Champions to provide outreach to more communities, and continuing to work within its existing network. By 2025, Thrive’s goal is to empower one million people to grow their own healthy food and eliminate the disparity in access to nutrition. With interviews, surveys, and site visits, Thrive has been able to garner feedback from the communities they seek to serve to better understand what tools are necessary to teach them to be sustainable and keep the project going.

After the Thrive for Good team’s presentation about their challenges and goals for the future, Labstorm attendees came to some recommendations.

Key Takeaways: 

  • Structure Thrive’s business model. Attendees suggested that Thrive individually price its services, which would allow its partner organizations to select which services best meet their needs. This flexibility would allow Thrive to reach more partners than a one-size-fits-all approach and could enable Thrive to meet its goal to reach more communities.
  • Help other organizations recognize Thrive’s value.  Currently, Thrive offers its partners a custom dashboard with monitoring and evaluation metrics for each project. LabStorm participants recommended that Thrive add community feedback data to its dashboard to assess and show the level of confidence that constituents have in Thrive’s work.
  • Use feedback to foster open, equitable, and effective partnerships.  LabStorm participants shared that organizations look for transparency and openness in their partnerships.  By receiving feedback on constituents’ wants, needs, and vision for their future, the organization can demonstrate its commitment to continual improvement, adaptation, and impact, and strengthen its relationship with partner organizations.

Read the full article about feedback for impact by Madison McDaniel at FeedbackLabs.