Issue #22

Weekly evaluation inspiration for...

Non-profits who DARE

Do you ever get the feeling that sometimes people ask questions, even though they really don't care about the answer?

Never was this as clear to me as the time my then-5-year old asked me what lakes the Detroit River connected to. We were driving to her dance class and as I moved on from Lake St. Clair to start talking about the Great Lakes, I looked in my rearview mirror and realized that she had picked up a cell phone she made out of cardboard and taken an imaginary call. Oof!

I actually come across this a lot in my work with organizations. It's not uncommon that I'll connect with a partner, program participant, or even staff member, and hear that they've shared feedback in the past but it's never gotten anywhere.

This might be one of the greatest challenges to engagement, from my perspective. When we ask people for their opinion and either don't use what we heard, or don't close the feedback loop to tell them what came of their feedback, they are less likely to invest their time in the future.

It doesn't mean that you have to take every suggestion you get. Sometimes, it's enough to say "we hear you and here's why we can't do anything about that right now". People understand that organizations face various constraints, letting them know more about those also helps them know that their perspective was heard and considered.

Last week, my friend, Power BI expert Joe Travers featured me in his Follow Friday series on LinkedIn. Along with a dose of imposter syndrome (which Joe happened to write about last week), it also gave me some inspiration to come up with this tagline: Use your data. Change the world.

Because the thing is, the only way we're going to really change systems is to work together and make better use of what we have. Each time you ask a person's opinion, it's not only an opportunity to hear their perspective, but also a chance to engage them in your cause.

P.S. I'm working on an idea to help organizations use their data for decision making. I'd love to hear from you - what have been your road blocks? What's helped you make data a part of the decision making process?

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