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

People who fall into the low income to extremely low income to no income category as defined by HUD.

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

Paper surveys, Case management notes, Suggestion box/email, Other means

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

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?

Our mission statement states that we serve with compassion, connection and dignity. We strive to consider the whole person that each of our clients is and the feedback we receive from our clients (along with what we know of their cultures, ethnic backgrounds, religions, gender identities, etc, influences the structure of our programs, the foods we have available, and the programming we provide.

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

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

We are currently working on a new strategic plan to greatly increase our impact on homelessness in Pasadena. A Board Member, who is formerly homeless and a former client of Friends In Deed commented that in our new plans we were not focused enough on finding "appropriate housing" for people as opposed to just finding housing. We can not consider ourselves to have offered an opportunity for housing to, say, someone with a disability that can't do stairs, if all we have shown them are 2nd floor apartments with no elevator access. We are including this important focus on appropriate housing in our new strategic plan.