Growth, Feedback & You

One of our core values at YouthWorks is development. That takes on a lot of different forms – not just in an individual level but also on an organization-wide scale, because our desire is to grow and change to be a better ministry. One of the ways we determine our next steps of growth is through our summer evaluation process – by listening to people who come on our trips.

 

Every week we invite all of our participants on every single trip to tell us about their mission trip experience. Our site staff read the evaluations, process them, evaluate changes to make for the upcoming weeks, and hopefully improve. Some of the information gets passed on to the main office, so we can identify broader themes and areas of improvement.

 

In addition we invite Trip Leaders to take a post-trip survey. Since the beginning of the summer, a group of us have gathered each week to read this feedback and determine what action steps are needed to follow up with Trip Leaders’ responses. Even now, we are continuing with this process.

 

 

Included in this feedback, of course, we received some constructive criticism. We’re not perfect! But like I said above, we are continually seeking to be a better organization that meets the needs of churches, so it is very helpful to gain the perspective of many leaders who have taken YouthWorks mission trips. It has been good to be able to find ways to respond to this feedback – ways like tweaking our programming, improving the resources we provide, or making a specific connection with a Trip Leader to hear more about their experience. Thank you to the many who are helping us develop as an organization by sharing constructive criticism.

 

Through the Trip Leader post-trip survey we also hear a lot of really positive feedback. One of my favorite responses to read were those that answered this prompt:

 

“In 140 characters or less, describe your experience.”

 

Responses to this prompt included…

 

We were challenged and encouraged to stop and listen before taking a step in to help others. Valuable lesson to bring home and demonstrate.          –Tiffany Kollmeyer

 

With YouthWorks you get the chance to be Jesus to others and see Him work in your life as well.
–David Beals

 

I have never had so many students tell me that they experienced the best week of their lives.
  –Ron Skoglund

 

We’ll read and share these 140-character descriptions all year to remind us of why we do what we do as we prepare for Summer 2015.

 

Many Trip Leaders allowed us to share their 140-character response, and they were entered into a drawing. We’re excited to announce the winning response:

 

Incredible trip for our students to Martin, SD.  Met real needs through work projects and loving on community kids while helping them learn God’s word.          –Jeremy Balch

 

Jeremy, we’ll be sending you your prize in the mail soon!

 

We will continue to be looking at feedback from this past summer, especially these next couple weeks as our fulltime staff are back in the office and we have entered our season of evaluation. We re-read evaluations, compile feedback, create graphs and discuss what we can learn and how God is calling us to grow, change and develop.

 

Please be in prayer for us as we pause to look back so that we can best choose how we move forward. And thank you for sharing about your experience with us – the encouragement, the stories about life-change within your group, the things that could have been better, and your ideas for what we do next.

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In over 10 years at YouthWorks, Mara Amiot served in many different leadership roles before her current position as Executive Director. She has a strong desire for YouthWorks to deepen relationships with mission trip communities year-round as we continue to challenge teenagers to find Jesus through meaningful service. Mara is an avid learner and can often be found reading, running or spending time with friends, family and her husband Lee. She is also a Mentor Advisor to youth volunteers at church.