How to Establish and Manage a Systematic Community Feedback Mechanism

Originally published on August 8, 2018.

Putting up a feedback box is easy. Systematically collecting community feedback, analysing the feedback and using the analysis to improve programming is hard. When I led UNHCR’s Communication with Communities team in Greece, this was one of the issues we struggled with the most and I wish I already had had access to the IFRC’s guide on establishing and managing systematic feedback mechanisms, which was recently produced with the help of GroundTruth Solutions.

The document is mainly intended for Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers and has an emphasis on migration programmes, but can easily be used and adapted by anyone working with communities. At the core of the document is a step-by-step process that walks you through design, data collection, data preparation, dialogue and actions to improve community feedback.

Equally useful is the separate toolkit which contains templates for reports, surveys and much more.

I was really impressed with both the clarity of the guide and the usefulness of the toolkit. It’s exactly what you need when you need it.