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The 2024 Minnesota IFS community survey: what we learned

As the admin of the Minnesota IFS email list, I wanted to learn more about our statewide community — not only to improve the list, but also to explore other ways we might want to connect with each other statewide. Here’s what a community survey revealed, and what’s next for the model in our state.

In the spring of 2023, IFS colleagues Delta Larkey, Bridgett Littel, and Ash Chudgar invited all the Minnesota IFS colleagues we knew to join a simple email list. Since then, Ash (that’s me) has been moderating the list as a service to our community.

This summer, after big changes in the IFS Institute’s policies, I wanted to learn more about my Minnesota colleagues — not only to improve our email list, but also to explore other ways we might want to connect with each other statewide around the model we all love. So I created a survey and sent it out to the list.

Out of 65 members, 22 of us participated — almost one in three, which is pretty impressive for a survey! After many months, I’ve finally put the results together. Here they are:

How the email list has changed

Defining our community

When we started the email list, Bridgett and Delta and I said it was “just for trained Level 1+ IFS practitioners in Minnesota.” I wondered whether that definition still fit our statewide community. As it turns out: almost!

Our community seems to be people with formal IFS training from any source (not just the IFS Institute), who both live and work with clients in Minnesota.

What we want emails about

A year and a half after we started the email list, folks have opinions about the kinds of messages we want to receive from the email list (and don’t). 

A clear signal: we do not want to get messages about paid resources that aren’t somehow Minnesota-specific. 

New membership standards and community guidelines

The survey made some areas of consensus very clear, so I’ve already made a couple easy changes to our email list:

  • Description. The list is now described as “for formally trained IFS practitioners who live and practice in Minnesota.” This removes the Level 1+ requirement.
  • Affirmations. New members must affirm that they have formal training in IFS, and that they both live and practice in the state. (Formerly, non-Minnesota folks signed up for the list pretty frequently simply in order to market their paid resources to us, which I found quite vexing.)

I’ve added new guidelines to the welcome letter for new members to emphasize community and set standards for promotional emails. Here are the new community guidelines:

Community guidelines

Community care. As IFS practitioners, we support others as they take compassionate care of the communities within themselves. We ask that you bring the same spirit of curiosity and connectedness to our community of practice.

Referrals. If you’d like to refer a client, make sure to mention their specific needs — if they need to use a certain insurance, issues they’re working with, hours they can meet, that sort of thing. If you want referrals from others, tell us the specifics of your practice, too.

Promotional messages. You’re welcome to promote events, trainings, and resources of interest to the Minnesota IFS community within certain limits:

  • You are always welcome to promote free and very low-cost IFS trainings and resources, from anywhere, of any kind — the more, the better!
  • Promotions for paid IFS trainings and resources are only welcome if they are Minnesota-specific in a way you can easily explain.
  • If there is any cost associated with the resource you are promoting to the list, we ask that you clearly state the total cost in the body of your message (not just in an attachment or external website).

If you have any feedback about the guidelines, just let me know.

Our hopes, and a next step

As the IFS method grows, the IFS Institute changes, and our community of practice evolves, how do we envision the future of the model in our state?

More than half of respondents took the time to describe their ideas for the future of IFS in Minnesota in free-form answers. Some noteworthy themes:

  • Community. Almost all who added comments expressed the desire to gather as a community — online, in person, or both.
  • Outreach. Four people mentioned doing outreach to increase public awareness of the model and access to it. 
  • Skill-building. Three people envisioned opportunities for skill-building and peer consultation.

How we might contribute to the community

Making those exciting ideas real will take time and money. The survey asked how much of both folks would be willing to contribute to the community every month. 

On average, folks seem willing to contribute $8.32, or volunteer 2½ hours, to the community every month.

Next step: An online directory of Minnesota IFS practitioners

The survey also offered some specific ideas for ways our community might grow together. One idea rose to the top quickly.

The idea of an statewide IFS practitioner directory seems broadly appealing — perhaps a good step toward a more formal organization. And I would love to help our community make it happen! I’ve got many parts who love doing that sort of work, and the idea of making healing and liberation through IFS more accessible to more people in Minnesota is deeply compelling to all of me.

While I’m not sure about specifics, I’m confident that we can get a Minnesota directory up and running pretty quickly and efficiently. I’ve already stood up a tiny directory for folks in my Level 1 cohort, and I’m part of an informal working group that trying to build open-source infrastructure for safe and effective community-building around partswork — just the sort of infrastructure we’ll need for our state-scale directory.

If you like the idea of being part of an online directory for IFS practitioners in Minnesota, just write to me and let me know! Meanwhile, thank you for being part of this wonderful community. It’s great to be here.

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