Survey Sessions, Part 2: How to choose your survey audience

Congrats! You’ve taken the first major step in planning your nonprofit survey project. You’ve figured out what you want to learn from your survey and how you will use your data to further your organization’s mission. Now what?

Next, it’s time to choose the audience for your survey. The people who should receive your survey are those who are best qualified to answer your research questions. For instance, imagine a local credit union recently launched a new financial education program. They want to create a survey to find out the following:

• What aspects of the program were most helpful?
• What aspects of the program were least helpful?
• What improvements can the organization make in the future?
  

The people who can best answer those questions are those who participated in the program and the instructors. Why?

• Program participants can relay their experiences and share what was most/least helpful for them.
• Program instructors can share what they perceive to be the most/least helpful program elements for their students and insights about curriculum improvement.
  

Seems pretty straightforward, right?

Choosing Your Survey Audience Can Get Tricky

Sometimes, organizations decide to send surveys to broad groups like “partners,” “stakeholders,” or “policymakers.”  There are two major problems with using vague terms like these to describe your audience:

1. It may be unclear who “counts” under these categories, which can lead to confusion during the planning and implementation process
2. All members of a particular group may not be the right people to answer your survey questions
   

So how do you narrow down your list? Write down all your stakeholders and create a list of pros and cons to determine which groups should receive your survey. This strategy is also an excellent way to develop subgroups or parameters around which group members should be included. The table below gives an example of a stakeholder checklist for a survey about the impact of an organization's youth programs.

Sample Stakeholders Pros and Cons List

Why Clarifying Your Survey Audience is Critical

There are two reasons why your organization should take the time to identify your audience. First, when you are clear on who needs to take your survey, you can craft questions best suited for that audience. Also, getting clear on the audience can help further refine the purpose of your survey and make it easier to explain to staff members, donors, and other stakeholders (however you define that term!).

And finally, for the last tip – write down the final decisions and share them with the survey team. When the team is on the same page about the project purpose and process, the implementation process becomes much easier.

Need help with your next survey project? Schedule your free 45-minute consultation call today!