Feedback Mechanisms
a strategy for self-sustainability
More self-sustainability means having more autonomy and less reliance on external funding, expertise or decisions. It means having a larger capacity to choose and negotiate with other initiatives what’s best for your project and what’s not. It means an increasingly equitable participation, which will lead to development models that are more comprehensive and relevant for all, that is, more sustainable. Know more
Several development projects become more self-sustainable by setting up feedback mechanisms that help them identify and address their different stakeholders’ points of view (donors, collaborators, beneficiaries, authorities, etc.) – and adapting and improving in light of their feedback.
Many development initiatives try to ensure that the interests, needs, opinions and experience of their various stakeholders are taken into account. Canvassing opinions, receiving suggestions and listening to feedback helps make their projects more comprehensive and more relevant to all, while fostering more equitable negotiations of priorities and ways of working.
In addition, these mechanisms keep projects informed about opportunities or problems that could affect their self-sustainability, which not only helps them make better use of their resources, but also helps them adapt to maintain their sources of support by listening to and addressing the concerns of those involved.
Depending on the project, some initiatives get feedback by organizing meetings or events with different stakeholders or other projects to hear their diverse perspectives or similar experiences, and some make a special effort to get feedback from groups that are not normally taken into account. Some design pilot projects to identify concerns or positive feedback before scaling up new ideas. Others create technology-supported mechanisms, such as questionnaires or rating systems when relevant (in ecotourism projects, for instance). Others simply place books or suggestion boxes within the reach of beneficiaries, and still others create participatory diagnosis dynamics, work teams or even new local stakeholder organizations that help them gather concerns or proposals from people involved.
In addition, some initiatives have noticed that when they make these feedback mechanisms transparent or publicly known, they foster trust and a sense of certainty for current and future collaborators, which often leads to more support.
Actually, there are many different feedback mechanisms that can be used to make a project more self-sustainable. Take a look at how these initiatives have done it!
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