Nonprofits, these days I want to dedicate my energy in encouraging you to consider surveys in your work (if you haven't already).
Here is why -
Surveys are a two-way street of building engagement. It’s something like this in the picture.
Say you are doing a donor survey, with your current top fundraising priority being retaining your first-time donors of the pandemic.
A survey here gives you a chance (beyond asking questions of their motivations and interests) for you to 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞:
● How your donation dollars are spent in the community
● Overall impact of your donors, volunteers, and other constituents in the past year
● Individual story of a donor (doesn’t have to be someone above a specific threshold only) as to how giving enabled joy for them
● Celebration of your collective staff efforts in keeping the lights on during these pandemic challenges
And more...
What your hear back on your survey then is so much richer. It is not just responses to your specific questions. It becomes an invitation for dialogue.
That’s when your survey stops being a data collection tool but an agent of co-creating change with your community.
What is your take on surveys?
(image description: a blue colored bubble with the words "your survey" shown to have different interactions with a group of people representing community of a nonprofit (donors, volunteers, members etc.) These interactions are shown to establish that using surveys nonprofits can build meaningful co-engagement with their community.)
