Capacity Corner: Lake Organization Capacity
By Sara Windjue, Leadership and Capacity Development Specialist, Extension Lakes
A survey gives members a chance to share their thoughts anonymously, including those who do not attend meetings. Most groups hear from a few voices over and over, while many others stay silent. A survey levels the playing field and invites everyone to weigh in. Developing a good survey takes time. We are happy to work with you to ensure your survey gets you the information you need. Steps for a successful membership survey:
Determine your audience.
Decide if you’ll survey only paying members or if you want to hear from all potential members.
Set clear objectives.
Know what you want to learn and how you will use the results. Don’t ask for feedback you won’t use.
Choose how you will distribute the survey and protect anonymity.
Direct mail works well for people without internet access, but you’ll need to print, mail, and manually analyze responses.
Email is efficient if you have members’ email addresses, and online tools make data analysis very easy.
Phone calls allow follow-up questions and personal connection, but they aren’t anonymous; however, you can keep their responses confidential by detaching their name.
Door-to-door outreach builds relationships and inspires conversation, but is time consuming and not anonymous.
Consider offering an incentive.
Free memberships, gift cards, or lake-themed merchandise can boost response rates. Remember, incentives will require you to know who completed the survey, but these names don’t have to be linked to responses.
Write clear, unbiased questions.
Keep your survey short (no more than 10 questions) and make sure it’s clear and impartial by running it by a few reviewers. You can use open-ended or multiple-choice questions, or a mix of both.
Test your survey.
Try it out with a small focus group to catch confusing wording and technical or logistical issues.
Send it with a clear deadline.
Two weeks is usually enough time. A reminder as the deadline approaches can help increase responses.
Analyze and share the results.
Provide graphs and short summaries to make the findings understandable. Discuss results at an open meeting so members can see that their input matters and is being taken seriously.