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Spark! Strategic Solutions

Spark! Strategic Solutions revisits the conceptualization of motherhood, reveals the lives and worlds of Idaho’s mothers, and offers a blueprint for unifying communities -- built by and through reinvesting in mothers.

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Featured Report

Built With Care: Unifying Communities Through Motherhood

Everyone, everywhere, has one thing in common: Our lives are shaped by mothers. In so many ways, how we support the mothers of the world influences how we live today and how future generations will live tomorrow.

What if all mothers had the resources and support they need to be the best versions of themselves? What could the world be?

To answer these questions, this report examines motherhood in Idaho, drawing on the perceptions and experiences of more than 4,000 Idahoans to illuminate the roles, experiences and needs of mothers that so often become overshadowed in conversations about resources and policy.

Download Built with Care: Unifying Communities through Motherhood Report
Built with Care: Unifying Communities through Motherhood report cover
Featured Report

Built With Care: Unifying Communities Through Motherhood

Everyone, everywhere, has one thing in common: Our lives are shaped by mothers. In so many ways, how we support the mothers of the world influences how we live today and how future generations will live tomorrow.

What if all mothers had the resources and support they need to be the best versions of themselves? What could the world be?

To answer these questions, this report examines motherhood in Idaho, drawing on the perceptions and experiences of more than 4,000 Idahoans to illuminate the roles, experiences and needs of mothers that so often become overshadowed in conversations about resources and policy.

Download Built with Care: Unifying Communities through Motherhood Report
Built with Care: Unifying Communities through Motherhood report cover

Idaho Voices Survey. All survey data pertaining to Idaho residents (including Idaho mothers) reflect findings from the Idaho Voices Survey, completed by 4,088 Idaho residents aged 18 and older between Aug. 22, 2023, and Oct. 17, 2023. Of these respondents, 1,753 identified themselves as mothers.

This survey was conducted in English. Respondents were recruited through address-based sampling techniques. Initial recruitment was conducted by mail, but respondents were given the option to complete the survey through a mail survey or by web survey. The web survey was accessible through a survey weblink or by scanning a QR code.

Gallup weighted all data to ensure samples are demographically representative of the adult population in the state of Idaho using the most recent Current Population Survey figures. For results based on this sample, the maximum margin of sampling error, which takes into account the design effect from weighting, is ±2.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Margins of error for subgroups are higher. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Idaho Voices Interviews. This report includes references to findings or themes from interviews with Idahoans and includes several direct quotes from Idaho residents. These are derived from a qualitative research study conducted by Gallup in partnership with Spark! Strategic Solutions in October-December 2022. Gallup researchers conducted 50 30-minute in-depth interviews with Idaho residents. All respondents were members of the Gallup Panel™ who currently reside in Idaho. Interviews were conducted by trained Gallup researchers who used a semi-structured interview guide to ask questions about Idahoans’ experiences, perceptions and opinions.

The sample for the in-depth interviews comprised 20 respondents from the Treasure Valley region of Idaho and 26 respondents from other geographic regions throughout the state; four did not report geographic information. Respondents included 17 mothers and six women who were not mothers. Of the men who participated, eight reported having children in their household, and 17 reported having no children. Respondents ranged from 28 to 83 years of age.

National Comparison Data. In this report, any comparisons made to national (U.S.) data refer to results of a nationally representative Gallup web study completed by 12,684 U.S. adults aged 18 and older, July 26-Aug. 10, 2023. The survey was conducted in English. This study did not cover individuals without internet access. The Gallup Panel recruited 6,663 respondents for the study and supplemented them with 6,051 respondents from a third-party sample provider.

The Gallup Panel is a probability-based panel of U.S. adults whom Gallup selects using address-based sampling methods and random-digit-dial phone interviews that cover landlines and cellphones. Demographic targets were specified for the third-party sample provider to improve representativeness of the sample. Gallup uses a multistage weighting process to ensure samples are demographically representative of the U.S. adult population using the most recent Current Population Survey figures; this process includes weighting Black, Hispanic and White respondents separately for each sample source before combining the sample.

For results based on this sample, the maximum margin of sampling error, which takes into account the design effect from weighting, is ±1.7 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Margins of error for subgroups are higher. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

74% of mothers in Idaho support the idea that “being a mother is the most important part of who I am as a person,” but more than a third of mothers (38%) describe themselves as feeling tired or burned out.
99% of Idahoans agree that mothers are very or somewhat important in creating a positive family environment.
38% of Idaho mothers say their communities do not provide the support they need to be good mothers, and nearly half of Idaho’s mothers say they do not feel comfortable asking for more help or support in their day-to-day activities.
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