Who are the people you serve with your mission? Describe briefly.

Our target population is youth, and particularly girls or youth who identify with the female experience, in 1st-5th grade, who face systemic barriers to literacy and empowerment. The youth and families we serve come to us through our partnerships with nonprofit and public housing communities, Title I schools, and community centers serving neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty. An estimated 81% of our participants are from low-income families, 63% are from families where a language other than English is spoken at home, and 60% are from families where Spanish is spoken at home.

How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

SMS text surveys, Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Suggestion box/email, Other means

How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

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

With whom does your organization share the feedback you got from the people you serve?

The people we serve, Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners

How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship with them or shifted power - over decisions, resources, rules or in other ways - to them?

We've made a number of decisions based on feedback and input from our beneficiaries. We heard from our caregivers that their kids had significantly reduced access to books during the height of the pandemic, so we began investing in the distribution of free books for home libraries (which we continue to do today), as a key component of our book club offerings. We have also successfully recruited three Spitfire caregivers to join our board, who bring to bear their professional experience as well as their lived experience in service of our mission.

What challenges does your organization face in collecting feedback from the people you serve?

It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, We don't have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time

Briefly describe a recent change that your organization made in response to feedback from the people you serve.

In the 2021-2022 school year, we experienced a significant increase in mental health and social-emotional challenges among the girls we serve. To understand this better, we used a portion of our meeting time to hold focus groups with our participants on this topic. Key themes that emerged were lack of access to mental health services, the need for conflict resolution support and social-emotional training (a lingering effect of the pandemic), and family engagement in mental health. To address this, Spitfire secured funding to contract with child counseling providers to lead small group mental health support during Spitfire Club meetings. This program officially begins in January of 2023 and we are seeking additional funding to expand the program to additional cohorts.