Constituent Voice and You I want to do 2 things: 1. Talk about our experience and learning, which culminates in our CV methodology 2. Pose a few questions for you to think about and discuss Many discussions end with the conclusion “we need to listen systematically to our constituents”. I will use that as my starting point, not my end point. Lets take it as read… Reasons to listen (more later about the value): Part of accountability, but more: Improves programming, which improves progress towards intended outcomes Improves engagement and relationships, which improves progress towards outcomes, partly by increasing agency Kai Hopkins Kai@keystoneaccountability.org

Real Voice… Systematic is important for inclusivity Proactive listening not reactive listening, more inclusive

Question No. 1 What makes systematic listening hard for you? Capacity Priorities Unintended consequences How to move beyond tokenistic? Capacity: the experience and craft of collecting and using feedback well. Time and resources. Conflicting priorities: the competing priority to listen to the main funders of their work – donors, foundations and governments. Unintended consequences: perceived risks that feedback will generate unrealistic expectations in respondents or put organizations in a bad light to funders. Question of incentives

Constituent Voice This is our approach, but there are others too. A combination of participatory development and customer satisfaction. Process of learn, acting and repeating is key, but allows for course correction in real time, and repeating tells you if you are improving Collection at key touchpoints – (depending on context) Key is understanding the feedback and agreeing with partners how to improve. Course correct includes modifying the feedback system itself.

Accountability & relationships Mutual accountability for agreed outcomes Relationships strengthened Voicenurtures agency Accountability & relationships Performance Real-time management data Early warning and predictive metrics Discovery & Innovation Encourages innovation and adaptation New ideas bubble out of dialogue Evaluation Important time series perceptual data A channel for using evaluation findings

Ebola – Sierra Leone Frontline worker survey Greater understanding and changes in programming Citizen survey Frontline worker survey In-depth occasional surveys

Food needs being met

Development Partnership survey Over 70 INGOs CARE UK and USA covering demographics, Financial support, non-financial support, administration, relationship and communications, understanding and learning, overall satisfaction

Visualisation and presentation

Question No. 2 “Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns”… Who are your constituents? What do you already know? What do you not know? What can they tell you about your performance and Theory of Change? Donald Rumsfeld

Collection is the easy part

Metrics to manage to Predictive power

Members with higher CV scores are TWICE as likely to achieve economic progress

Incentives Benchmarking is useful incentive What other incentives do you have / need?

Question No. 3 How does data land in your organisation? How is data analyzed and presented? How is is shared and discussed? What are the incentives to use it? Is there a learning culture? What is the attitude towards failure? Learning culture – how is feedback received?

Question No. 4 (final one!) What do you need to make this work for you?

What you might need Internal (http://feedbacklabs.org/quiz-page/) Culture Capacity and capabilities Management systems External Guides and resources Questions and datasets www.thefeedbackstore.com Quiz link can help identify areas of the feedback cycle you are weak in. Culture is key – many orgs have things in place, but no culture of learning. Keystone is building an online platform which will help on the external side.