Stanford Social Innovation Review: Homeless Shelter Uses Feedback to Help Its Clients Regain Independence

Our House, homeless shelter in Little Rock, Arkansas, uses client feedback to help them regain their independence and improve Our House’s services. To fulfill the gap left by using longer surveys every six months, the nonprofit contacted HappyOrNot to be able to listen to their clients every day.

As the most devastating part of poverty might be losing the ability to be heard, Our House wants to empower their clients by involving them into decision making in every step of the process. Five terminals around the campus ask a different question each week, determined together with the organization’s community council. The community council also participates in the data analyzing.

“We think that this is a good compliment as it’s giving us the pulse of the organization and each program area throughout every day, all year round,” says Ben Goodwin, the Executive Director of Our House.

“It takes a lot of humility to be able to listen to that feedback. But at the end of the day, it’s empowering to our staff as well as it reminds them of the mission: that we are here to help these people to find their voice in the world.”

Watch the video for the full story at Stanford Social Innovation Review