As a membership organization that aims to always work in the best interest of our community, we want you to know as much as possible about how we decide what services to develop, improve, or redesign. One critical way we make those decisions is through input gathered in surveys to our members. In our most recent member survey, from February and March of this year, we asked about your awareness of and satisfaction with our services as well as what’s on your mind as you think about the future of your organization. Here is what 177 community members told us.
Satisfaction and Service
We were delighted to learn that 92% of people who have worked with us are satisfied (37%) or very satisfied (55%) with their experience. Not one respondent indicated they had a negative experience, and we are very proud of that.
When we asked respondents to agree or disagree with statements reflecting our mission and values, we were also encouraged to see strong alignment between what we intend to deliver and what you think we are delivering. Agreement with each of these statements increased since our last survey in 2022. In 2024, more than 3 out of 4 respondents said that:
- WiLS is approachable and they feel comfortable contacting WiLS staff (89%)
- WiLS is an important part of the library and cultural ecosystem in the state (88%)
- WiLS connects them to other libraries or cultural organizations (83%)
- WiLS is an organization that can help get things done (82%)
- WiLS helps them understand what is happening in the Wisconsin library world (80%)
- WiLS is an innovative organization that raises awareness of new ways of approaching problems and services (79%)
- WiLS stands up for members and helps organizations support their mission and values (77%)
- WiLS understands members’ budget constraints (75%)
Additionally, an important goal for us in the last two years was to increase member awareness of some of our less visible services and projects. The survey told us we were largely successful, as we saw awareness increase in all but two of the eight services we asked about.
Future Developments
In addition to understanding how you think we are doing, we wanted to know what you’d like us to work on in the coming years by better understanding the needs our member organizations have. You told us these three things were most on your minds:
- Staff development
- Advocacy and marketing
- Telling your organization’s story through data
We understand that different types of libraries and cultural organizations have different priorities, and here are the top ones for each of the member types we serve:
| Member Type | Top Priority for Future Planning |
| Public libraries | Advocacy and marketing |
| Public library systems | Data for organizational storytelling |
| Academic libraries | Staff development |
| K12 school libraries | Staff development |
| Special libraries and cultural organizations | Grant-seeking or grant writing |
This information is critical to us as we dive into the third year of our Strategic Plan, developing and improving how we respond to what our members need to succeed. In fact, we’ll be using these survey results to guide part of our priority-setting work at our upcoming annual staff retreat this September.
We deeply appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts with us. We look forward to continuously fine-tuning our work, guided by your input! Please reach out if you have any questions or comments to Jen Chamberlain at director@wils.org.
