Member Survey Results
by the 2021 Guild Programming Committee (Kris Ashley, Sarah Peterson, Erika Akiko Howard)
It's been an interesting two years since our last Member Survey, hasn't it?
We’re so pleased that almost 200 of you (approximately 50% of the Northwest Editors Guild’s membership) took the time to participate in the 2021 Member Survey, especially amidst the ongoing upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 2021 Member Survey asked about many different measures of our professional lives. We've pulled out a few things that we thought were the most interesting takeaways to share. If you're interested in seeing the full results, find them here.
1) Location
Since our last survey in 2019, more Guild members live outside Seattle: 49%, as opposed to 35% in 2019; this is largely due to the decision to open up membership to editors outside the Pacific Northwest. Because of that, we now have members in really interesting places. This is a snapshot of the “Other” write-in answers we received.
2) The Covid-19 question
How did our members’ work fare during the Covid-19 pandemic?
As it turns out, quite well for many of us! As you'll see in the chart below, a majority of members who responded (55%) said business was good or even going strong during the pandemic. A solid 28% reported that business was good but could use improvement, and 17% reported worse outcomes.
For members who need to find work, we encourage you to seek professional support through Guild offerings such as the online Job Board and our member meetings that focus on career development—or by connecting with fellow members in other ways, such as on the email list.
3) Engagement with the Guild in Changing Times
And in terms of engagement with the Guild, many of our responding members said that Covid-19 didn't change the way they interacted with the Guild very much, despite all in-person events becoming virtual. “About the same” was the highest answer category for each measure of Guild engagement that we asked about, as shown in the snapshot below.
We do note that, for some of these avenues of engagement, up to one third of members who responded said they engaged with the Guild less frequently than usual in the last two years.
Especially as virtual events and a more geographically distributed membership have become part of the Guild’s new normal, how we stay connected with each other is an important factor to consider.
The Programming Committee is also taking into account the answers for what type of projects, what style guides, and what editing-related things you'd like to know more about as we put together our member meetings for 2022. Thanks for all the input—you've helped make our job much easier!
Here's to everything we have done individually and as a Guild to survive 2020 (and for that matter, 2021). Our goal continues to be, as ever with Guild services and events, to help keep our membership happy and healthy and getting the most out of our Guild!
