Ithaka

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

Ithaka specializes in serving families who are unable to be served elsewhere; these families are larger (five to eleven people in size) and oftentimes have accessed public health systems unable to help them get ahead. Our programs provide homes for those who would otherwise be on the streets, including many single parents and couples with children, those with mental illness and chronic physical ailments, people with criminal histories unable to access services elsewhere, those with previous evictions and low credit scores, many families seeking to secure access to legal services, and others who have exhausted personal and community resources and for whom affordable housing exists behind barriers too high to overcome.

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

Paper surveys, Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Case management notes, Community meetings/Town halls, 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,

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

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

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

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to get honest feedback from the people we serve,