First published at Charityscience.com in 2014 Many charities claim to accept and even enjoy feedback (both positive and critical), but I find that the reality is less straightforward. Most charities have two kinds of set-ups for feedback:
There is a huge difference between these two, but people often think both of these make an organization open to feedback. Studies have shown that people are convenience maximizers, preferring to put in as little effort as possible. If something is a step harder, there is generally a huge drop off rate. For example, if you ask someone to give feedback, but make it inconvenient or subtly discourage it, the amount of real feedback you get will be a small fraction of what would have been given if it was made easy. If I wanted to make it seem like I was accepting feedback, but did not really want to receive or take into account large amounts of feedback (particularly negative feedback), I could do a number of things. I could discourage feedback by:
I could make it inconvenient to give feedback by:
I could make it unpleasant to give feedback by:
If I see an organization doing these harmful things with regard to feedback, I get the sense that they do not really want to improve based on others' suggestions. Taking negative feedback in particular can be hard, but it’s an important skill to learn and it allows ideas to be improved much faster. We will never be able to solve the really important problems if we cannot admit that we are not doing everything perfectly. Did you know that Charity Entrepreneurship can help you start
an effective charity? If you want to be the first to know when we will start accepting applications to our incubation program, subscribe to our mailing list.
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