Capacity-Building for Nonprofits

Collect Client Experience Data – And Act On It

Partner with our expert coaches and team members to build a feedback system tailored to your organization.

Join an Info Session Register for Listen4Good

Is your organization experiencing these issues?

Low response rates to surveys?

Surveys that are too long, with results that aren’t actionable?

Diminished engagement from marginalized populations?

Listen4Good’s programs help organizations:

Improve programs and services
Boost fundraising
Inform strategic decision-making
Operationalize equity goals
Measure outcomes and impact
Support advocacy

Our expert coaches and team partner with you to build a feedback system, tailored to your organization.

The result: your own in-house feedback system that you can use over and over to respond to your community’s needs and deliver measurable impact.

Listen4Good has made us have a process that is more sustainable, more equitable, getting richer results, getting more feedback from the community we’re working with.

Robyn Mar

The Bronx Defenders

Some of Our Clients

Choose your level of support

All organizations get access to:

Coaching

1:1 coaching from a team of seasoned evaluation professionals

Web App

L4G’s proprietary content-rich app with tutorials and peer examples

SurveyMonkey Premier

Free subscription with survey translation into 56 languages & data visualizations

On-Demand Resource Library

Over 100 feedback articles at your fingertips

Webinars

Live trainings with peer exchanges

Premium

Dedicated Coaching 10-15 hours

Receive ongoing guidance and support throughout the process to keep you on task and maximize your experience

Survey Additional Audiences

Listen4Good provides templates and support for surveying clients, volunteers, staff, partners, and communities.

Pricing available upon request

Get Started

Online+

On-Demand Coaching up to 3 hours

Book a call with a coach when you need additional support with your client feedback system

Pricing available upon request

Get Started

Questions?

Listen4Good’s registration deadlines are June 1 and December 1 of every year, with cohorts launching in January and July.

Join an Informational Webinar

Ready to Enroll?

Listen4Good has really supported us in developing a culture of feedback and a culture of listening. It’s been really helpful in allowing us to report out to funders and other stakeholders, not just about the number of folks that we’ve served, or the impact that our program has had on scores or data, but also metrics that are quantifiable around what folks experience in our programs and with our team.

Ruth Ann Moss, Executive Director

Small Magic (formerly Birmingham Talks)

We found that there is a big difference between doing surveys internally and working with Listen4Good. With Listen4Good, we received a high level of support and technical assistance from an expert. The guidance through each step of the feedback loop process was pivotal. It was incredibly helpful all around to have someone who was an expert in data and evaluation practices.

A.Y.A. Youth Collective

Some of Our Funders

Frequently Asked Questions

Our nonprofit feedback program is a training and coaching program designed to build organizations’ systems for gathering, interpreting, and responding to client feedback. By using client feedback tools and methods effectively, organizations can better understand their clients’ needs and expectations and embed them into programming, which leads to more effective services, stronger outcomes, and meaningful, equitable change.

Client feedback can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your organization’s programs and services, helping you to hone what you are great at while also identifying areas for improvement. It also is an incredible first step in building strengthened ongoing relationships with clients – moving them from recipients to partners.

By using client feedback tools and creating strong feedback loops using established methods, your nonprofit can gather more accurate and meaningful feedback than you would through DIY methods.

High-quality feedback leads to better outcomes, important data for decision-making and fundraising, and a more equitable, trust-based relationship with your clients.

Clients are individuals who receive services directly from an organization. Our goal through Listen4Good is to bring forward voices that are often least heard in order to improve nonprofit and philanthropic practice.

Examples:

Families visiting food pantries, youth attending after-school programs, residents of public housing, recent immigrants using legal-aid services, or people participating in job-training programs.

Clients as defined for the Listen4Good program are generally not staff or volunteers who work with clients—that is, unless your organization focuses specifically on training these individuals. If you’re not sure how this definition applies to your work, please reach out. We’d be happy to discuss.

Many aspects of the programs are identical — including access to our web app, online supporting content and survey tools, and group learning opportunities. The key differentiator is that with Listen4Good Premium, you receive more extensive coaching from a single dedicated coach who guides you through the entire program. Listen4Good Online+ participants receive more targeted coaching from our pool of coaches.

Consider a number of factors to determine which program is right for you:

Does your organization have the capacity to be self-directed? With Listen4Good Online+, while you’ll receive prompts and regular communications from us, it’s up to you to reach out for 1:1 assistance throughout the process. We’re here for you, but you have to make the call. With Listen4Good Premium, your dedicated coach will be actively moving you through the process.
Do you already have strong technical skills related to data collection and analysis? If so, Listen4Good Online+ will likely be sufficient and offers a great way to learn more about how to use feedback as a unique source of insight. If you’re still building your data collection and analysis skills, Listen4Good Premium might be more appropriate.
Do you anticipate having lots of ongoing questions and know that you work better with someone external holding you accountable to your feedback goals? If so, Listen4Good Premium may be your best fit.
Look at the cost of each program. Do you expect to pay the fees yourself or do you have a funder that might work with you to cover the cost?

We run multiple cohorts to accommodate organizations’ different surveying needs and programmatic calendars. If you’re aiming to administer your survey in spring/summer, consider joining our January cohort, which has a registration deadline of December 1st. If you prefer to administer your survey in the fall/winter, consider our July cohort, which has a registration deadline of June 1. You can consult our timeline here.

Our programs typically start every January and July, and run for 18 months after each start date. You can see the timeline, which is organized around our 5-step feedback loop process, here.

The surveys you create through Listen4Good are designed to be short—between 15-20 questions. They include 8 required questions and up to 12 custom questions that you can draft and rotate based on your needs.

You can administer a Listen4Good survey using a variety of methods—by computer, electronic delivery, on paper, or through interviews. We’ve designed our processes to be flexible and tailored to individual organizations’ and clients’ needs. You can administer your survey in up to 55 languages.

Staff time required to implement Listen4Good varies depending on the size and complexity of your organization and the scope of your feedback work. However, in general, we believe it takes about 70-100 hours to implement Listen4Good in aggregate over the course of the 18 months. Recommended staffing includes having one person serve as the Listen4Good project manager and having at least one additional senior champion engaged in the work.

Organizational prerequisites include:

Having some base capacity and institutional infrastructure to focus on feedback.
Serving at least 60 clients annually.
Agreeing to use our core survey questionnaire

Yes! In addition to Listen4Good’s client survey template available in the Online+ program, our Premium program has survey templates for volunteers, staff, partners, and a community needs survey. There are many constituencies in our community that you want to hear from and Listen4Good will help you collect feedback from the diverse groups you serve.

At the end of your initial engagement with L4G, you’ve built a feedback system that you can continue to grow and develop. As you deepen your practice, there are multiple ways to stay engaged:

Continue to collect feedback outside of L4G. You own your data and survey questions– you’ll be able to take both with you after your L4G program ends.
Continue with L4G Advanced tracks. L4G offers multiple options with tailored content to advance your practices. Advanced tracks also come with the L4G web app and access to a Premier SurveyMonkey account.
Continue with L4G’s core programming (Premium or Online+). Core programming gives you continued access to the L4G web app and your Premier SurveyMonkey account, as well as access to the latest content in L4G’s five step model.

Listen4Good often works with organizations that are already conducting surveys. In fact, many of our participants come in with some components of a feedback system already in place.

Listen4Good also works with organizations that do not currently have a client feedback survey practice. Listen4Good’s program supports participants to develop a sustainable feedback practice with a strong equity frame.

The backbone of the Listen4Good approach is a standardized client feedback survey; Listen4Good also has supplemental surveys available to survey partners, staff, or volunteers. While organizations may have outcomes- or other evaluation-focused surveys in place, Listen4Good focuses on these standardized feedback surveys. The Listen4Good coaches support organizations to adapt the Listen4Good standardized surveys to their context, and will work with organizations to identify strategies for integrating the feedback survey within an organization’s existing survey practice. Note, however, that Listen4Good does not work with organizations to analyze existing evaluation-focused surveys or data.

L4G’s resources and coaching expertise are the best fit for supporting you with processes related to feedback surveying. Collecting a large number of survey responses allows you to analyze the data in various ways, such as differences based on demographic or program participation. Note that surveys don’t have to be paper/email/text based– they can also be administered over the phone or in-person much like an interview.

Adding qualitative methods to your feedback process, such as interviews or focus groups, might let you dive even deeper, providing a more in-depth understanding of client experiences. Listen4Good coaches and resources have some expertise in focus groups and interviews, but our core focus is on helping you gather and use actionable survey data.

If you have a question we haven’t anticipated, get in touch:

Attend an Info Session Contact Us

Capacity-Building for Nonprofits

Collect Client Experience Data – And Act On It

Is your organization experiencing these issues?

Listen4Good’s programs help organizations:

Some of Our Clients