Illuminate

Solicit crucial stakeholder input to inform your decision-making

Illuminate is an information gathering and analysis service that guides your nonprofit in making informed decisions about your future. Illuminate gathers critical feedback from a broad pool of your current and potential constituents about what’s most important to you. We collect data from diverse constituents, analyze and distill the results, and then walk you through what those results mean—serving as your co-strategist as you make decisions.

Illuminate’s Value

Illuminate can help your organization answer questions, understand real and perceived barriers, hear from new or underrepresented voices, and hone efforts around topics such as:

Philanthropic Support: How your donors really feel about your nonprofit? What motivated them to make their first donation? What would inspire them to give more?
Services: What is your market for new services—including specific types of services, who the services would reach, and where the services would occur? How might you improve or adapt current services?
Inclusion: How can your organization strive to be more equitable and inclusive and understand different points of view?
Fee Structure: What is the appropriate price point for earned revenue, membership fees, dues, or fees for service?
Perceptions: How does your nonprofit stack up to similar organizations in the minds of your current and potential constituents?
Volunteers: Are your volunteers and advocates satisfied with how you currently engage and communicate with them—and is there room for improvement?
Brand, Messaging, and Communications: Are your messages effective? Do they resonate, create confusion, or create a negative impression of your nonprofit with constituents?

Sample Outcomes

Information gathered and analyzed through Illuminate will enable you to:

Enhance engagement with your current constituents. The more your constituents understand and appreciate the work you do, the more they’ll engage with and support you.
Identify and attract new constituents. Illuminate can help you expand beyond those constituents you already know and identify new constituents who are not yet on your radar or included in your customer relationship management.
Implement operational efficiencies to reach your full potential. When you’re in the trenches, it can be difficult to see where change needs to happen. Illuminate information and analysis uncovers the holes in your organization that need fixing, so you can maximize resources and impact.

How It Works

Illuminate involves a three-channel data collection process and culminates in a report you can put to use immediately. You can choose which information gathering channels best meet your needs and the objectives you want to accomplish.

Interviews: In-depth interviews are one of the most valuable ways to gather direct feedback from your constituents. JGA’s appreciative inquiry approach utilizes a consistent set of questions in each interview, and interviewees are also able to raise topics and themes on their mind. JGA’s experience interviewing thousands of diverse individuals will ensure conversations are both discreet and precise.
Focus Groups: Focus groups will provide in-person or virtual interactive group opportunities that produce important discussions, observations, and insights. Bringing together current, former, and desired constituents from different backgrounds helps explore and reveal various thought patterns. Focus groups are well-suited to test perceptions and ideas, especially related to the development of new services or philanthropic priorities.
Surveys: Digital market research will collect data online using a survey distributed through email, website, mobile app, QR code, and/or social media platforms, to reach those you are already connected with and those you want to reach. Survey questions can be tailored to multiple constituencies and will be designed to probe about various features of your nonprofit and gauge interest in topics you care about, such as new services, philanthropic investment, and opportunities for growth.