This post was contributed by Whitney Dooley, Assoc. IIDA, Vice President of Advocacy, IIDA Oregon Chapter.
In order to correctly represent and advocate for the interests of commercial interior designers, the IIDA Oregon Chapter conducted a comprehensive advocacy survey last spring.
At the end of 2017, Oregon’s Interior Design Coalition, IDC-Oregon, dissolved and the IIDA Oregon Chapter took on the immense responsibility of leading future advocacy efforts in the state. As we embarked on this journey, we realized that there wasn’t an empirical understanding of the needs and desires of commercial interior designers in Oregon as it pertains to registration and regulation.
We decided that to properly represent our members’ interests, it was imperative to collect data about local attitudes towards governmental regulation, accepted benchmarking, and, above all, definition of the profession.
In February 2019, as part of the chapter’s annual keynote speaker event, NEXT, the advocacy team conducted a short Advocacy Survey. The goal was to determine how our members and other members of the design community feel about commercial interior design advocacy. The survey also contained questions that shed light on what our members already knew about advocacy, and where there were gaps that we could address with education.
In developing the survey, the advocacy team knew our questions had to be succinct and relevant, while still measuring meaningful data that would help us plan future advocacy efforts. We started with a brainstorming session and then edited the final survey down to six questions. We also determined that this would be a great avenue to recruit potential advocates and measure support from industry partners. See the final survey here.
The advocacy team distributed hard copies of the surveys to all event attendees at the door of the NEXT Breakfast. NEXT attracts a diversely affiliated crowd, giving us access to the feedback we may not otherwise see. We incentivized completion of the survey by entering all completed surveys into a drawing for a ticket to 2020 NEXT. The surveys were collected before the speakers began, and a collection box was placed at the exit.
Image Credit: Emily Wright, IIDA, Director of Advocacy, Oregon Chapter.
Our response rate was 47% of all event attendees. 44% of respondents were currently employed as a commercial interior designer. In analyzing the results, we broke out some responses by IIDA members vs. non-members. Emily Wright, director of advocacy, used Piktochart to create a comprehensive graphic that summarized our results and contained more information about getting involved. We published the results on the IIDA Oregon Chapter website in April 2019.
Looking towards future survey efforts, we found success in tying the survey to an event. We plan to roll out these surveys at other chapter events, making sure that the event format allows for thoughtful responses. Incentivizing the survey completion seemed to have an impact on respondents, and we’d like to explore other methods of doing this. These surveys also complement our State of the Industry Report, which focuses on Oregon project types, revenue, and salaries.
In conclusion, the chapter and the profession benefit from bringing advocacy issues to the forefront wherever possible, and we look forward to continuing this survey effort. We hope to eventually pursue a data-driven approach to legislative efforts, proving to elected officials that voters care about the regulation of the commercial interior design profession in the Oregon State.
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