A process for gathering feedback for the director

Our Committee (Corey Adkins, as Chair, David Parker, Jay Stewart, and John Smith) was formed and began working in September 2014 and produced a final report that was submitted to Council at its February 2015 meeting. Portland’s feedback gathering process was the result of a contractual agreement to review the Council and the Director’s “performance, communication practices and appropriateness of position / mandala structure” every year. That agreement was the result of the growth of the community and the organization from a small group that shared responsibility and effort to a larger situation where leadership was formalized, professionalized, and compensated. The feedback report which the committee submitted to the Director and the Council in February is confidential, but this report on the process we used is intended to be shared.  The process was announced to the community in December, 2014.

We were impressed by the caring, community spirit, and windhorse that characterized so many of the community’s responses to our questionnaire. The survey was sent to 52 people, three-fourths of whom held a volunteer position within the Portland Shambhala Center and one-fourth who were added in discussions with the Director. Twenty-three responded to the questionnaire and another 5 by email. We conducted one in-person interview. The overall response rate was 56%, including all the Council members. The responses from those who opted to write letters instead of using the survey have been incorporated into this report where appropriate.

The most useful information was in the open-ended comments. In writing our summary, we found that there was more consensus on the many positive comments than on the issues and suggestions for change, so we attempted to identify those issues that came up in responses to multiple questions from more than one respondent. The process has stimulated discussion of the challenges that face us individually and as a Center. We hope that our experience might be useful elsewhere in the Shambhala Mandala.

— Corey Adkins

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