Pittsburgh Opera, Inc.

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

Each season, nearly 60,000 individuals participate in Pittsburgh Opera programming, with almost a third of our audiences participating in education and community engagement programs designed for both students and life-long learners. Our audiences include families and students from economically underserved areas of our region (including schools with over 90% of students qualifying for free and reduced fee lunches), students from southwestern Pennsylvania colleges and universities, individuals with hearing impairments, educators who participate in professional learning opportunities, as well as thousands of individuals who explore our work on our website and social media sites and tune in to Pittsburgh Opera previews and opera broadcasts on the radio.

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

SMS text surveys, Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Constituent (client or resident, etc.) advisory committees,

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?

In shaping our appeal messaging at the start of the 2021-2022 season, Pittsburgh Opera solicited feedback from the Development Committee for feedback at the start of this season. As a result of the Committee's suggestions, we reshaped our appeal messaging to focus on coming back together with friends and the collective experience of gathering.

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?

Sharing feedback with Pittsburgh Opera has allowed our constituents to significantly impact the decisions on the use of the resources in determining the content and format of the company's programming. Most recently, Pittsburgh Opera responded to the requests from the region's educators by expanding its Opera Trunks program, which delivers collections of resource materials directly to the classrooms in colorfully decorated steamer trunk, to include two new series of trunks designed for preschoolers and teenagers.

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 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, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded,

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, 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,