WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA EAST FOUNDATION INC

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

The mission of The Writers Guild of America East, Foundation, commonly known as the Writers Guild Initiative, is to make the art of storytelling accessible to groups whose stories have been written out of mainstream narratives, with a focus on historically marginalized communities. WGI helps emerging writers explore storytelling in all forms, engage with writing to express themselves, and use writing as an invaluable opening for their experiences. We continually seek out and engage different populations. Among those we work with are: Veterans and their caregivers, LGBTQ Asylum seekers, documented and undocumented immigrant youth, those suffering Long-Covid, front-line nurses, survivors of human trafficking, those currently incarcerated and death row exonerees.

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),

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?

Most of the feedback we get is that people want to find ways to continue writing once they have completed a workshop. In response, we have deepened engagement by providing both increased opportunities to write and community with other writers. We offer a weekly writing prompt and we offer opportunities for our participants to write, and if they choose, submit their work to be shared on our blog, social media, in our newsletters and other publications, as well as performed at our Gala.

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners,

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

The feedback has been essential in thinking through ways to engage meaningfully and creatively with our participants. In addition to the above-referenced writing prompts and writing opportunities, specific populations we work with expressed a desire to share their work. As a result, we have offered "sharing spaces," a virtual closed (not open to the public) open mic, where participants can share their writing or have it read so they can hear it. These events serve to build community, increase confidence and amplify voices.

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, 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 hard to come up with good questions to ask people, It is difficult to identify actionable feedback,