Bangor Symphony Orchestra

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

The BSO serves adult audiences in our mainstage programs, youth in our educational programs, and people in hospital/mental health settings through our Music & Wellness programs.

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

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 strengthen relationships with the people we serve

What significant change resulted from feedback?

With our Music & Wellness Program, hospital staff identified that our musical visits were not having a direct impact on the desired patient groups within the hospital. In response, we sought and received grant funding to hire a music therapy consultant to re-shape this program with further input from hospital staff. The result is that the our musical visits to the hospital are now conducted on different units, with carefully coordinated pre- and post- communication with staff to ensure we are meeting patient needs.

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

We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, 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 act on the feedback we receive

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time, It is difficult to identify actionable feedback