THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

The Library serves and incredibly broad audience including patrons of all ages and all backgrounds. However, it prioritizes how it uses Foundation funding to support programs and services that serve people facing the greatest barriers to accessing Library resources, as well as elevating voices that have been traditionally marginalized or underrepresented. Using data to drive decisions, the Library prioritizes where it delivers programs based on community need, race, and social justice goals. Equity is centered in all decision making.

How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Paper surveys, Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Case management notes, Community meetings/Town halls, Constituent (client or resident, etc.) advisory committees, Suggestion box/email,

How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals,

What significant change resulted from feedback?

The Library’s digital media program was using virtual reality as a way to engage teens from a college program focused on developing tech interest with minority students. When COVID struck, community partners were concerned about the mental health of students and teens in isolated environments. Recognizing this need, the program shifted its focus from working with students on virtual reality projects that focused on social justice projects, to focusing on creating mental health awareness using similar tools to other VR projects. As work progressed, it was also made clear that teens were seeking a physical space, so the Library launched an effort to help Librarians support teen mental health across its physical environments. SPL has obtained two IMLS grants to advance this work nationally.

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners,

How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship?

Library programming decisions are made in partnership with community partners. It is listed in our guidelines that, whenever possible, community partners must be engaged. We’ve invested heavily to build long-term sustainable relationships with partners, and often we rely on them to carry out programs. For example, we created a community curator program for our author series that engages BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ curators. Curators from the community are given complete discretion over planning, programming, and activities within a defined budget scope. Decision making in this program shifted to the curators representing communities not always engaged in or represented by Library programming.

Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback,

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time, It is hard to come up with good questions to ask people, Privacy in a public library setting is fundamental value that we do not compromise.,