Tools and Lessons to Make Listening to Clients Feasible

Adding feedback to measurement systems as a complement to monitoring and evaluation requires developing the organizational capacity to listen. This means soliciting feedback from the people you are trying to help in ways that inspire candor. And it means applying that feedback in ways that let those who gave input know they’ve been heard. New tools are emerging to aid this process.

In this audio slideshow, Valerie Threlfall, founder and principal of Ekoute, shares a five-step process from an initiative of Fund for Shared Insight called Listen for Good (L4G) that involves:

• designing a way to collect feedback;
• tailoring data collection to client context;
• interpreting the data;
• responding to it;
• letting those who gave the feedback know what you’ve done.

Threlfall, who also serves as managing director of L4G, describes and illustrates the method, providing a primer for organizations striving to grow their capacity to give clients greater voice and influence.

This audio slideshow is part of a series that was produced for Stanford Social Innovation Review by Milway Media with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.