Results from the 2011 Neighbors for Neighbors Network Evaluation.

1. March 23, 2011
NFN Survey
Results and Analysis
Prepared by Anna B. Sandoval Girón1
This report is part of the formative evaluation prepared for Neighbors for Neighbors, Inc.
Here I provide an analysis of the results of the survey conducted during February 2 – 7, 2011 as
part of the evaluation I was tasked to do for the organization. These results must be viewed as
only one portion of the evaluation and within the context of the goals that NFN has as a whole.
The survey sought to gather information about current members of the NFN network in the
Boston area. We sought to identify strengths and weakness of the current network, the issues or
current community problems that users are interested in addressing, and demographic data of
respondents.
The NFN network is comprised of nine neighborhood networks in the City of Boston
with 3380 individual subscribers to the network. In order to recruit participants to the survey an
invitation for participation was sent to registered email addresses through the NFN
communication network. In addition announcements about the survey were posted on the
Facebook of Neighbors for Neighbors and on twitter for followers of the @Neighbortweet during
the days of data collection to encourage subscriber participation. We had a 5.9% response rate
with two-hundred individuals filling out the survey.
Who answered the Survey?
Of those who answered the survey the majority of them (88%) are neighbors who live in
the communities of Boston where NFN has organized. An important group of respondents are
those who play multiple roles in the communities in which they live, of respondents 16.5% of
indicated that they identify with multiple roles in the community. This means that members of
Neighbors for Neighbors are not only people who live in the community but also volunteer their
time for non-profits, work in the communities they live in, are business owners, etc.
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For questions, further information, details on the data or any other inquiries please contact Dr. Anna B. Sandoval
Girón at NFNevaluator@gmail.com or anna.b.sandoval@gmail.com
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2. March 23, 2011
Relationship to NFN
(percentiles do not add to 100%)
multiple roles 16.50%
business owner 2.50%
rep community org 11.50%
work for city 2.50%
work local non-profit 13%
Neighbor 88%
More than half (57.4%) of respondents have lived in their neighborhood for over 10 years, while
13.4% have lived in their respective neighborhoods for less than three years.
Forty percent of respondents have been involved with the organization for less than one
year; Thirty-nine percent have been involved between 1-3 years. Eleven percent have been
involved for more than three years. The challenge remains to sustain long-term membership and
involvement with NFN. Below I detail some of the strategies that may be used to maintain long
term involvement.
How long have you been a member of NFN?
50%
40% 39%
40%
30%
20%
11% 10%
10%
0%
Less than one year Between one and More than three years Not a member
three years
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3. March 23, 2011
Almost 40% of respondents are between the ages of 31-40, making this age group the most
represented amongst respondents.
The majority of respondents were female (65.8% female as compared to 32.9% male and
0.6% transgender). In terms of ethnic and racial identity the overwhelming majority of
respondents identified as white (87.66%) as the graph below shows. A group that is worth
mentioning is those who did not answer the race/ethnicity question, 23% of those who filled the
survey chose not to answer this question. Regardless the differences in percentiles between the
groups is so wide, there is enough confidence in the data to suggest that the majority of members
of NFN identify as white. Unlike most surveys this survey allowed respondents to identify with
more than one race or ethnicity providing us with a nuanced picture of NFN, almost 4% of
individuals identified as multiracial.
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4. March 23, 2011
Network Features
The main themes that emerge from the analysis of the question: What is most valuable
to you about the NFN network? is members like to get updates on events; communication
and connecting (information on what is going on); and feel that NFN strengthens community
ties. The answers to this question nicely fit into the usage of features. When analyzing the
question: how often do you use the following features on the Neighbors for Neighbors
Network? members primarily used the features designed to communicate. Members report
using blogs (29.5%) and events (31.7%) at monthly rates; meanwhile making little use of other
features such as groups, multimedia, neighbors and members. The groups feature was only used
monthly by 20.8% of respondents, while it was never used by 46.7%. The feature of neighbors
and members has a similar pattern; only 14.8% of members use the feature monthly while 49%
of respondents have never used it. Meanwhile the multimedia feature monthly usage of 14.8%
while 65.2% have never used the feature. Below is a table that illustrates the responses for all the
questions and the frequency responses.
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5. March 23, 2011
In terms of the things that users feel need to change there are a variety of important and
insightful observations made in the open-ended questions. The primary themes that respondents
commented on in the areas that need improvement in the network are: the blogs, groups,
forums, the social network aspect of NFN, and the design of the website. Below I expand and
explain each of these areas.
The website is one area that users commented on. The comments centered on the ability
to navigate the site, the confusion in terms of how to get to the information that users needed,
and the number of items that appear at the home page. One respondent stated: “I can't work the
website; it's too busy, too complicated.” There are several solutions to work around these
concerns and re-design the site in a more user-friendly format that will allow those who visit the
site to easily navigate the features. This leads to the second of the areas that users feel need
improvement: features.
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6. March 23, 2011
The features that are used the most, based on the survey, are the blogs and the events. The
features with the least utilization are the multimedia (65.2% of respondents have never used the
multimedia feature), the neighbors and members (49.1% have never used the feature, while only
12% use it weekly), the groups feature (46.7% have never used it, 20% use it once a year), and
the forums (50% have never used it while 21.6% use it once a year). There are several
explanations to the low usage of these features. Even though users see the value in all these
features they find the navigation to find the items in the website difficult. In addition, users have
found that they can get the same services and features in other more popular websites therefore
they rather use other venues. For example, the forum service is duplicated and very effectively
done without registration by Craig’s List. The groups feature is duplicated by Meetup.com and
Facebook groups and to some extent twitter. Multimedia can be uploaded in other sites such as
twitter (via links to external sites: Twitpic, Flickr, Plixi and others) and on Facebook making the
use of the NFN features duplicates to the features of what other more popular and easier to
navigate sites are already doing.
The blog posts and the comments from the posts received a majority of the negative
comments. Users commented on the content of the blog posts, the way that comments are not
moderated, the usefulness (or not) of the comments, are all part of the many issues that were
raised in the areas that needed to be improved. For instance a respondent stated “The peanut
gallery comments on blogs. It seems to bring out the worst in people!” The focus on the
comments on the blog posts tells us that there is a need to institute new ways to moderate and
engage in conversation. A civil conversation does not necessarily mean a free-for all
conversation, it means a respectful and engaged conversation, which is what members are asking
for. To finish on a positive note, the calendar section is something that users feel is underutilized
and they would like to see a more robust place to access information about local events and
organizations.
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7. March 23, 2011
Appendix A: Technical information
Sampling
Non-probability sample modeling
This online survey will target an open population using the N4N network and it
will be posted in the Network's website, in Twitter, Facebook, and sent as an
email to the members of the network. This means that the sample is a non-
probability sample. This limits the external validity of the results but allows us
to understand the situation of the users of the N4N network.
Data Gathering
The data was gathered between February 2 and February 7, 2011 using the
online survey software SurveyMonkey. Invitations to participate in the survey
were sent to a total of 3380 members of one of the Boston area NFN networks:
 Jamaica Plain (Members 2387)
 Charlestown (Members 152)
 Dorchester (228 members)
 East Boston (Members 174)
 North end (Members 127)
 Roxbury (Members 45)
 Allston Brighton (Members 105)
 South end (Members 57)
 Roslindale (Members 104)
The survey was officially open between February 2 and February 5, 2011 but
remained accessible until February 7.
We received a total of 200 respondents to the survey, response rate 5.9%
Data Analysis
Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data collected.
The Quantitative data was analyzed through SPSS. All variables were analyzed
for frequencies, when appropriate variables were re-coded for clarity and ease of
analysis.
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