With so many free, online survey firms, getting feedback from your community is a snap. For mail surveys, you can find plenty of providers who will pop questionnaires off to the postal service. There are situations where sending a survey yourself makes sense. But there are situations where you are heading into headache.
Here are five questions to ask yourself as you consider conducting a survey yourself or calling a consultant.
In conclusion, high-stake decisions that may have significant controversy are often better left to professionals, if you can make funding available. This is especially true if your staff are already working on important projects and may not have the technical experience to minimize potential survey errors or bias. Low-stake, small, operational surveys can be a terrific way to enhance community engagement and build staff skills.
For more information, visit the Cobalt website or reach out to us by email. Let us know if you need anything at all for benchmarking or research data; we are here for you.
Cobalt Community Research is a national 501c3 nonprofit, non-partisan coalition that helps local governments, schools and membership organizations affordably engage communities through high-quality surveys, dynamic population segmentation, focus groups and work groups that use instant audience feedback technology. Cobalt combines big data with local insights to help you thrive as changes emerge in the economic, demographic and social landscape. Explore how we can help you by calling 877.888.0209, or by emailing [email protected].
Here are five questions to ask yourself as you consider conducting a survey yourself or calling a consultant.
- Are the stakes high? If the results of the survey will be highly public, will guide significant resource decisions, or are controversial, then you may want to consider a professional firm. If the results are more operational (to improve awareness, monitor ongoing customer service, etc.), then a DIY approach makes sense.
- Am I credible? In public service, you provide diverse services and programs to serve a diverse set of community needs. As a result, not everyone likes you and your team. If there is grumbling, then your perfectly-executed survey will be a lightning rod for criticism and will slow your momentum. If the community is generally content, then this is a much lower risk.
- Do I or my team have the knowledge to conduct and analyze the survey? It is simple to create an online survey. Some principal elements that cause problems are question wording, leading questions, a sample that is not representative of your population, and errors in analyzing the responses. Are 400 random responses drawn from your voter list enough to represent the full population of your community? Generally, yes. Are 400 responses on your Facebook poll representative of your full population? No.
- Do I or my team have the time? You can assign the survey to a smart secretary or savvy analyst, but it takes many, many hours to properly conduct a survey. Typing in questions and hitting the send button takes minutes. Getting buy in on questions, managing multiple rounds of review, coordinating edits, getting final approval, sending the survey, monitoring results, sending reminders, scrubbing out those who responded 12 times, coding in responses, running the analyses, graphing results, creating reports….
How much are you paying all the staff involved, and what is getting pushed back on their to-do list to answer the 50 voice mail messages left because a question was confusing? Short, simple surveys can be excellent DIY options. A full strategic planning assessment or review of ballot measure options will consume significant bandwidth from your team.
- Do I have the budget available? Depending on the type of survey you want to do, a private-sector consulting firm often will charge $20,000 to $60,000. That rate will be higher if you are perceived as having deep pockets or if you use the clunky request-for-proposal process you use for major road projects (the more cumbersome your process, the higher your quoted fees will be). As a nonprofit firm, Cobalt fees are significantly lower; however, printing, postage, phone banks, insurance, staff time, and licensing fees remain budget factors.
In conclusion, high-stake decisions that may have significant controversy are often better left to professionals, if you can make funding available. This is especially true if your staff are already working on important projects and may not have the technical experience to minimize potential survey errors or bias. Low-stake, small, operational surveys can be a terrific way to enhance community engagement and build staff skills.
For more information, visit the Cobalt website or reach out to us by email. Let us know if you need anything at all for benchmarking or research data; we are here for you.
Cobalt Community Research is a national 501c3 nonprofit, non-partisan coalition that helps local governments, schools and membership organizations affordably engage communities through high-quality surveys, dynamic population segmentation, focus groups and work groups that use instant audience feedback technology. Cobalt combines big data with local insights to help you thrive as changes emerge in the economic, demographic and social landscape. Explore how we can help you by calling 877.888.0209, or by emailing [email protected].