For Circle Members: Results of Donor Relations Survey
Recently
Claire Russell and Anne Adams volunteered to survey
50 fellow Circle members to learn more about how
you want to engage with IONS hub-quarters and
with other Circle members. (Circle members are
those who give annual gifts of $1,000 or more.)
A few major themes emerged:
- You want more time to engage with each other in dialogue at IONS events (and less time on presentations)
- You’d like to connect with others in your region
- You’d like to host IONS thought-leaders at events in your region
- You’d like to engage with other members around shared passions—especially peace, sustainability, education, and spirituality
- You’d like to engage in dialogue together around IONS program themes and topics from our research, Shift magazine, and teleseminars
- You’d like to share and converse with other members about books you have authored or social action projects in which you are involved
Here are a few ways that we address the needs identified in your feedback:
- Going forward, we are designing IONS education and experiential programs with a reduced ratio of lecture time, providing increased time for dialogue and interactive activities
- This year the Research and Donor Relations teams are partnering to conduct a United States tour with a series of regional events for the launch of IONS’ new book Living Deeply: The Art and Practice and Transformation in Everyday Life. We will be contacting Circle members and Community Group leaders to help set up these events in eight major cities
- Donor Relations is now featuring “Donor Spotlight” stories on Circle members in the monthly iShift e-zines and the Circle News.
- We provide the Shift in Action website to enable you to connect. For example, to post a book or social action project you are involved with or other content, go to the Share section, click Start a Conversation and complete the required fields (red asterisk) on the form that appears. You can attach document files and photos (i.e., a book cover) to share with other members and request feedback. To post an event, go to the Meet section, click Meet Manager, then Host Events and complete the form. To see examples of this capability, visit the Publicity section in Take a Tour feature (www.shiftinaction.com/tour/web_media). The next version (2.0) of the Shift in Action website will have an easier interface to allow members to find each other by geographic regions (if you allow for this in your Shift in Action profile)
- You can add key words to your profile so members can sort, find, and join blogs on topics of interest
We welcome your ideas on other ways to meet your needs. Please share your ideas with Deborah Breitbach (707-779-8216 or dbreitbach@noetic.org) or Kathleen Erickson-Freeman (707-779-8232 or kfreeman@noetic.org).
