Non-profit Bill Wilson Center supports more than 5,000 children, young adults and families through housing programmes, education, counselling and advocacy. Working to end youth and family homelessness is no small task, and data makes all the difference for Bill Wilson Center’s goals. In partnership with Listen4Good, a non-profit that helps social sector organisations build and sustain high-quality feedback systems, the organisation uses SurveyMonkey to collect feedback across its many services so it can continuously improve and have a genuine impact.

THE CHALLENGE

Collect actionable feedback about community programmes

“For non-profits, feedback is important because we’re established to serve the unmet needs of the community,” said Josh Selo, chief executive officer of Bill Wilson Center. “How can we fully understand the unmet needs of the community unless we ask?” Although Bill Wilson Center had previously gathered satisfaction feedback from participants in its housing and community programmes, the data wasn’t high-quality, useful or available throughout the organisation. When Bill Wilson Center was introduced to SurveyMonkey and Listen4Good, it discovered the missing ingredient to establish more effective feedback loops, identify gaps and opportunities and drive impact.

A video preview of two people looking at a laptop

“We are partnering with folks in our community who have had very marginalised experiences. SurveyMonkey is helping us gather their feedback in a way that makes the information that we get actionable.”

Laura Foster
Division director research, analysis and impact
Bill Wilson Center

THE ANSWER

Comprehensive insights that drive better strategies

Bill Wilson Center uses SurveyMonkey to check in with participants in its housing services, gauge satisfaction when participants exit services and survey community partners and internal staff.

For its first survey targeted at young adults in its Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) programme, Bill Wilson Center was able to fine-tune the design thanks to SurveyMonkey’s diverse question types, Listen4Good guidance and feedback from the Center’s Youth Impact Partnership (YIP), a youth council of current and former clients. This survey’s results revealed ways in which Bill Wilson Center could improve communication and access to services; the Center also received a great Net Promoter Score (NPS®) of 49, which helped validate the success of the programme.

SurveyMonkey makes it easy for Bill Wilson Center to share surveys via text, email and QR codes. And Division Director Research, Analysis and Impact Laura Foster appreciates that she can filter results in a variety of ways. For example, by filtering by attributes such as age or race, she can uncover how different groups of people experience Bill Wilson Center services.

“The analysis I’m able to do with SurveyMonkey is so easy,” said Foster. “We’re able to harness feedback in a way that would be far more difficult without the features that are available within the SurveyMonkey platform.”

A woman looking at a laptop with a floating image of an NPS survey in the background

“With SurveyMonkey, we’re able to learn from our clients what we do well and where we have opportunities to grow. Showing the community we’re listening to them creates the kind of relationship where people have greater confidence in who we are as an organisation.”

Josh Selo
Chief executive officer
Bill Wilson Center

THE RESULTS

NPS wins and data-driven improvements

Bill Wilson Center’s internal staff surveys gave its leaders a lot of ideas for improving employee experience, including a monthly all-hands meeting, a relaunched employee newsletter and new opportunities to recognise staff for their hard work and tenure. And after launching feedback-driven RRH initiatives, a follow-up survey confirmed that communication had improved and participants were benefiting from new staff training. Plus, the RRH programme’s NPS went from great to excellent with a 29-point increase that increased its score to 78.

One housing programme insight showed that 60% of young adults and 40% of families needed assistance with transport costs; this data helped Bill Wilson Center secure a grant to provide participants with fuel cards. “When we’re able to use the data that we get from feedback in a grant application or a news article, it provides a greater level of credibility to our services and message,” said Foster. “It also gives our board of directors a very specific view into the work that we do.”

SurveyMonkey has been instrumental in Bill Wilson Center’s strategic planning, helping it get in touch with board members, community leaders, government partners and donors to find out what the organisation is doing well, what it could do better and what it should focus on next. “Our strategic planning survey enabled us to create a three-year plan that had broad consensus from our stakeholder groups,” said Selo. “They felt that we had the right information and a clear vision of where to go, which wouldn’t have been possible without SurveyMonkey.”

Two people looking at a tablet computer with survey icons floating in background

Fuel your non-profit mission with feedback

Create programmes and experiences that maximise impact in the communities you serve.

Learn more

Want to learn how SurveyMonkey can help your organisation?

Request an Enterprise demo today.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.