A guest post today. Barry Hessenius asked if I would spread the word about study being conducted by the Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and WESTAF who are looking into the ways in which the non-profit arts field communicates.
They are seeking answers to many of the basic questions we all ask like, “Is anyone really reading any of this and is it useful to them?”
Those who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing for an Apple Watch and a separate drawing for a $500 cash award to your organization. Read on to learn more.
The Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and WESTAF are sponsoring a preliminary study on Communications within the nonprofit arts field, and have invited our members to join them by taking a brief national survey.
They want to make absolutely sure that the grantmaking community within our field is adequately represented in this survey.
This study seeks to gain valuable information on:
• How we communicate internally with each other
• How we communicate externally within the sector
• How we manage the growth in all communications
• What the impact is on our organizations of that growth in communications.
No one disputes that communication is at the core of every business, including the arts nonprofit sector. If we don’t communicate effectively success is problematic.
Oddly enough there has never been any comprehensive survey of how we in the nonprofit arts field communicate – internally or externally.
As a field, we have virtually no data at all as to:
• which means and methods we prefer to use to communicate,
• whether or not the means we do choose are effective,
• how we manage our communications
• where we get our information from, and
• which sources we trust.
Moreover, we have no information as to how we are coping with the dramatically increased information that flows from, and to, us on a daily basis.
Do you know if people read the reports, studies, and just general information you send them? Do they scan it or read it all, or do they ignore it if you are not one of their trusted sources?
Do you know if your staff considers the onslaught of information a positive or a negative in doing their jobs?
Do you know how many emails your staff deals with each day and how many hours a week they spend on different types of communications?
They have designed a basic, simple online survey that will give us all some base information on our communications behaviors, habits and perceptions.
The survey is 100% check off answers, with no open ended, narrative responses required or asked for.
It is completely anonymous and designed to take less than 20 minutes to complete.
While they cannot pay a fee nor provide a premium to every person / organization that takes the survey, they will, at the request of each survey responder, enter their name into a random drawing for an Apple Watch. We will also enter the name of the responder’s organization into a separate random drawing for a $500 cash award payable to that organization.
The survey seeks to establish a base line of data and information about communications within our sector, on which can be built further research. The aim is to
gain knowledge that will help us all to communicate more effectively, more efficiently and with a greater awareness of the issues and challenges inherent in all our communications decisions.
To that end they will disseminate as widely as possible the analysis of the results of the survey.
Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Knight-Hewlett-Survey
The survey is open from September 28th to October 16th.