Feedback Labs, Inc.
Making feedback the norm in aid, philanthropy, nonprofits, and government..
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Each year NGOs, foundations, aid agencies, and governments spend billions of dollars to improve people’s lives and address humanity’s most daunting challenges. All these institutions want to achieve their purpose and makes a demonstrated positive difference. That’s one reason why rigorous monitoring and evaluation have become an accepted if not required part of philanthropy and aid. But, in the push for more evidence and data, the voices of the people being helped have gotten lost. At Feedback Labs, we believe that feedback from the people intended to benefit from the work — whether we call them clients, stakeholders, constituents, citizens, or beneficiaries — is essential to monitoring and evaluation. Feedback leads to better outcomes and greater equity. That’s why we work so that collecting and responding to feedback will be the norm, not the exception, for organizations and institutions that aim to improve people’s lives.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Feedback Summit
The Feedback Summit brings together leading thinkers, practitioners, funders, and researchers in closing feedback loops in aid and philanthropy. We’ll be sharing our experiences, knowledge, and skills on transforming constituent feedback into power, and exploring feedback loops as tools for building responsive, democratic, and accountable governance. Closing feedback loops is not a spectator sport. Our attendees walk away at the end of the Summit with new knowledge, tools, and relationships to Close the Loop.
Tools & Trainings
Our Tools & Trainings are a suite of accessible, easy-to-use products and tools we have developed to help organizations establish feedback loops. One example is our Feedback Quiz, that serves as low-barrier entry points to help more organizations begin to explore their feedback practice. The tools & Trainings create a powerful base for an organization to analyze their feedback practice, seek help with particular issues, and collaborate with like-minded practitioners.
LabStorms
LabStorms are collaborative problem-solving sessions where a group of innovators convenes to help the presenting organization tackle challenges in their feedback projects and prototypes. The session begins with a 15-minute overview from the presenting organization about their work and the challenges they are facing, ending with three specific questions that they would like help answering. Attendees offer creative ideas for how to tackle challenges and share their own experiences with similar challenges. Presenters leave the session with a few actionable leads, meaningful connections, and new ideas they can apply to their feedback challenges.
Collaboration, reciprocity, and community have always been a part of the ethos of LabStorms. Since the community has blossomed and grown over the past few years, we made these implicit values explicit through LabStorm community guidelines. These guidelines reflect the spirit of LabStorms and the values we continually uphold as a community.
Feedback Crash Course
Through this training, you will equip yourself with the knowledge, skills, and tools you need to listen and respond to feedback from the people you seek to serve. We’ll teach you the basics, and help you solve the specific feedback-related challenges you face in your work as you learn from expert feedback practitioners and collaborate with outstanding peers. By the end, you’ll create a preliminary feedback plan that meets the needs of your organization and earn your certificate as a feedback pioneer.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of community events or trainings held and attendance
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
LabStorms are collaborative problem-solving sessions designed to help an organization with a feedback-related challenge, with the goal of providing actionable suggestions.
Number of training events conducted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We adjusted our Crash Course model in response to COVID-19, thereby greatly influencing this metric.
Number of conference attendees
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Feedback Summit
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Feedback+ is an annual conference that puts local leaders in conversation with philanthropic funders, nonprofit leaders, and aid representatives. We did not host Feedback+ in 2020-2021 due to COVID-19
Number of list subscribers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
In our newsletter, we share news from the feedback community, upcoming event details, and jobs. It is important to increase subscribers so that more people are looped into the feedback movement.
Number of website pageviews
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We use google analytics to determine how many people visit our website. According to the 2020 analysis, website views increased by 234% after our website redesign in 2019.
Number of participants who took a diagnostic quiz
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
The number of people who have completed the Feedback Quiz, a tool to show how your feedback practices stack up against others. This quiz is a starting point for further involvement with the community.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Feedback Labs’ goal is to make feedback the “new norm” across aid, philanthropy, and government. We know that many organizations already use feedback to inform decisions, but we are advocating an approach that is ongoing and systematic, that engages people giving feedback as partners and collaborators rather than test subjects, and that values their perspectives as experts on their own lives and communities. The process establishes feedback practices as a field in its own right. Consequently, we support nonprofits, funders and government service providers to be more responsive to those they seek to serve.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Working with influential platforms, funders, and feedback champions, Feedback Labs:
Develops powerful tools and trainings, like the Feedback Quiz and Feedback Crash Course, to give practitioners around the world access to the tools, know-how, and support to improve their feedback practice;
Convenes to ignite widespread community experimentation and collaboration that will drive the feedback field forward; and
Creates strong rewards and incentives for organizations that adopt high-quality feedback practices.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The Strong Field Framework, a guide and toolkit produced by Bridgespan for The James Irvine Foundation, offers a useful assessment template for funders and nonprofits that believe, as we do, that building a strong field is essential to accomplishing their goals. The toolkit defines a field as a community of organizations and individuals working together toward a common goal and using common approaches, and makes the case that a strong field is a critical lever of change for funders and organizations committed to large-scale impact. Modeling on this framework, we have established a strong set of resources and projects from which we base our work:
Shared identity - Feedback Labs is an important driver of shared identity, seen in our annual Feedback Summit which gathers more than 200 attendees.
Standards of practice - Feedback Labs brought together Charity Navigator, Candid, GlobalGiving and other leading platforms to create standards of practice that reach thousands across all three platforms.
Knowledge base - Feedback Labs’ Is Feedback Smart? paper is the leading summary of how feedback can lead to better outcomes. It is one of many examples of our thought leadership work.
Leadership and grassroots support - The Feedback Labs network has grown from 12 members to 600+ active organizations around the world. 60% of 2018’s Feedback Summit attendees were participating for the first time and our Feedback Fellows program is scaling globally.
Funding and supporting policy - Feedback Labs has supported large aid institutions and foundations to change their guidelines and to support and increase feedback practices.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
During its first five years, Feedback Labs has grown from an idea to a field-leading organization with a staff of seven, offering a suite of services to a worldwide network of nearly 600 organizations participating and collaborating in our programs.
In its startup phase, Feedback Labs pursued a strategy of field-building. We expanded our knowledge base through research, writing, curating and disseminating the literature about feedback practices. In addition, we created accessible tools and resources, like our Feedback Quiz, that serve as low-barrier entry points to help more organizations begin to explore feedback. The process framed a global conversation about the value of feedback loops. Further, the convening of an annual Feedback Summit, paired with more than 100 smaller convenings, connected people and organizations across sectors and geographies, allowing them to work together to explore concepts, develop tools, and experiment with new strategies. We used our events to establish a shared identity between participants, to increase the connections between leadership and grass-root support, and to affirm standards for feedback practice. All these activities, with help from many Feedback Labs members and partners, have helped to catalyze an emerging feedback field — which must continue to develop for feedback to become the “new normal” across aid, philanthropy, nonprofits, and government.
In our next phase, Feedback Labs will pursue a strategy of creating incentives, developing tools, and building community. Feedback Labs will catalyze even stronger shared identity by fostering increasingly ambitious collaborations, as our convenings shift focus from sharing ideas to taking action together. We’ll spread these standards across our network and introduce a certification framework that recognizes organizations and encourages others to improve their practices. We will deepen feedback know-how on the global front lines, expanding our Fellows program to encompass hundreds of practitioners, and engage thousands of active members.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
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
-
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 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, It is difficult to identify actionable feedback
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Feedback Labs, Inc.
Board of directorsas of 11/17/2023
Bryan Simmons
Arcus Foundation
Term: 2022 -
Dennis Whittle
Normal>Next
Jean-Louis Sarbib
Development Gateway
Britt Lake
Feedback Labs
Dave Algoso
Open CoLab
Sabrina Hargrave
Brooklyn Community Foundation
Heather Lanthorn
Social Science Research Council
Alen Amini
Boston Consulting Group
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.
Equity strategies
Last updated: 05/03/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.