Strings Music Festival

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

Strings Music Festival strives to provide music and performing arts experiences to the residents of the Yampa Valley through on-site programs in the Strings Pavilion and free outreach programs in venues and schools throughout Northwest Colorado. Strings offers more than 60% of our programs free to families, youth, seniors, and adults. The people of Northwest Colorado and visitors to our area are Strings' "community." The intimate and friendly setting of the Strings Pavilion, outreach programs, and free programs attract people of all ages and backgrounds and enhance the cultural, educational, and entertainment experiences of our audience and community.

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), 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,

What significant change resulted from feedback?

Strings Music Festival staff debrief following every performance in order to address improvements. Strings also employs professionally drafted, anonymous surveys of students, teachers, and parents and in-person meetings to evaluate Strings School Days. An example of a change in Strings School Days programming emerged from evaluations in 2020-21. We are re-establishing relationships with teachers and schools given the interruptions caused by Covid, assessing how our programs were used, and opportunities to improve use of materials. We’re discovering some teachers need to be trained in how to apply Strings School Days in classrooms, and we are planning to request time during teacher training days to make this possible.

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

Our staff, Our board, Our funders,

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

Our experience is people appreciate when we ask for their opinions and suggestions. In 2021 as we considered how to reopen our facilities given Covid challenges and opportunities for live music, we conducted a survey of our donors to ask their opinions. We had a tremendous response with more than 33% of donors responding to our survey, providing tremendous insights into the precautions we needed to take, and advising us on messaging and marketing. We also saw an increase in giving. Engagement through feedback and learning from feedback builds partnerships and relationships and strengthens our nonprofit organization. Similarly, as we involve our patrons, donors, and community partners in problem-solving, we learn together, our programs become better, and more people participate.

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 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,

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 find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time, Our student surveys are dependent on teachers who don't have much time to administer ,