VoiceGR kicks off second year of gathering community data

Researchers at Grand Valley State University’s Johnson Center for Philanthropy are starting the second year of a city-wide effort to capture the voices of a large sample of greater Grand Rapids residents as part of VoiceGR, a project to gather baseline research about the needs and wants of community members.

VoiceGR kicked off September 15 and is designed to gather input on various aspects of life in the greater Grand Rapids area, including health care, education, employment status, racial equality, the economy and more. Researchers hope to use the data to help nonprofits and philanthropic organizations in West Michigan use their resources more effectively. 

VoiceGR evolved from the Greater Grand Rapids Community Survey, which the Johnson Center has conducted since the early 2000s. VoiceGR hopes to solicit a larger sample of participants so that organizations using the data can better understand the population down to the neighborhood level rather than looking at greater Grand Rapids as a whole. The Community Research Institute will prepare briefs for each participating organization and release results early next year.

Organizations like the Literacy Center of West Michigan use the information to develop plans for programming.

“The Community Literacy Initiative values community input, and VoiceGR really is the best avenue for gathering a wide range of voices on many topics,” said Lindsay McHolme, director of the Community Literacy Initiative. “We’re looking forward to learning more about literacy practices in our community through the survey, and then using that information to advocate for and make decisions around literacy programming.”

The survey will be done online at VoiceGR.org. Researchers have partnered with community-based organizations to provide free, easy access to community members who may not have a computer or Internet connection at home. The Community Research Institute is partnering with the Grand Rapids Community Foundation to expand the initiative. 

“This survey is a way for greater Grand Rapids residents to have their voice heard. We hope to use the survey to engage community members in local government and nonprofit decision making,” said Jodi Petersen, senior researcher at the Johnson Center. “We are also partnering with LINC Community Revitalization this year to complete door-to-door surveys in addition to the online survey. This will allow us to make comparisons between neighborhoods on the status, perceptions, and priorities of residents and really localize the data for decision makers.”

Organizers of VoiceGR are working with large area employers to encourage them to ask employees to take about 20 minutes to fill out the complete survey. Several gift cards to local businesses will be raffled off to respondents as an incentive for taking part in the survey.