Introduction
If you were a practicing ombuds in 2025, we ask that you participate in IOA’s Organizational Ombuds Practice Survey.
This survey represents the only source of aggregated information about ombuds' practice, as well as being an important source of data on the value and effectiveness of our work. Please strive to complete it, answering as well as you can--we recognize that ombuds work is marked by some variation.
This survey represents the only source of aggregated information about ombuds' practice, as well as being an important source of data on the value and effectiveness of our work. Please strive to complete it, answering as well as you can--we recognize that ombuds work is marked by some variation.
The study's aim is to assemble a profile of the work of organizational ombuds worldwide, including our scope of services, organizational contexts, accomplishments and value. This helps IOA advocate for the field, helps to inform the establishment of new offices; the data may be useful to you in reports.
Your responses will NOT be linked to you or your office in any way; all data will be collected anonymously, and the survey system will not record any identifying information (such as name, location, or IP address). Published reports sharing information gleaned from this survey will not include any datapoints representing fewer than six participants. Our fully-anonymous survey data will be protected and housed within IOA accounts.
This survey is designed to gather information about each organizational ombuds role--so in case you held more than one organizational ombuds role as of December 31, 2025, please take the survey once for each distinct organization you served.
Should you have any questions about the survey, feel free to reach out to any member of the survey team. If you have issues accessing the survey, please reach out to Ellen Miller, Executive Director at emiller@ombudsassociation.org
The survey team:
Tim Hedeen, tkhedeen@gmail.com
Mary Rowe, jmprf@comcast.net
Jennifer Schneider, jaschnei@usf.edu
Hector Escalante, hmescalante@ucmerced.edu