How to Conduct Effective Surveys for Impact Measurement

How to Conduct Effective Surveys for Impact Measurement Main Photo

10 Oct 2024


Does your nonprofit conduct surveys to measure your impact? If not, you could miss out on an invaluable opportunity to better understand stakeholders’ unique perspectives, assess how your work impacts your community, and build stronger relationships.

Recent data from Giving USA 2024 shows that supporters want to invest in causes that have a broad, positive societal impact. Surveys are an effective opportunity to gather insights and communicate your impact to a wider audience.

Survey information can help you better serve your nonprofit’s community with support that aligns with their needs. It can also represent a positive starting point for long-term supporter engagement.

This post offers a few practical tips for designing and conducting effective surveys that get to the heart of your nonprofit’s contributions and community interactions. 

1. Define your survey objectives. 

Determining what you hope to gain from the survey process will help you stay organized and on task. Ask yourself the following questions to set clear goals:

  • What do you want to learn, and who must you ask to learn it? This step may seem basic, but it’s essential to understand exactly what information you seek and who will be the best stakeholders to gather this data from. Every stakeholder group will have insights into their unique experiences, so it’s crucial to choose the right audience groups to reach out to. For example, major gift investors will have a different perspective from mid-level or smaller investors.
  • How will you collect the information? Figuring out what platforms you use to disseminate surveys depends on your stakeholders’ preferences. For example, if you’re reaching out to current supporters, email may be the best way to reach them because they’re already in your contact list. However, if you want to collect responses from community members to assess your nonprofit’s influence and reach in your local area, you might post the survey on social media to reach a broader audience.
  • How will you use the data you gather? The insights you collect from the survey process can power a number of other fundraising and outreach activities. For example, you can use survey data to enhance your nonprofit storytelling efforts on your website, social media, and newsletter.

In addition, set goals around the number of responses you’d like to receive. This will help you determine how many stakeholders to contact with the survey. SurveyMonkey offers a useful calculator for determining the number of responses you should aim for based on the size of your audience. 

2. Design clear and relevant questions. 

Next, think strategically about the best ways to design your survey and word your questions to receive helpful feedback.

Start by clearly describing the survey’s purpose and goals at the beginning of the form. For example, you could explain to stakeholders that you’re conducting a survey to evaluate the impact of a new recreational program on youth sports involvement in the community. Providing context tells respondents exactly how their survey responses can have a tangible positive impact on your mission.

Then, you can start compiling survey questions. Keep these tips in mind to write effective questions:

  • Design questions targeted at gathering both qualitative and quantitative responses. For example, let’s say you’re interested in determining how effectively your organization manages program volunteers. You could use scale questions to gather quantitative data, such as “On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with your experience as a volunteer with our organization?” Then, to gather qualitative data, you can follow up with an open-response question, such as “Feel free to provide context about why you chose that rating.”
  • Include a privacy statement. When stakeholders know you will protect their personal data, they will feel more comfortable completing your survey. Include information about how you protect supporter data, such as encryption and user access controls.
  • Consider offering the option for respondents to remain anonymous. This can encourage more candid responses from audience members.  

Make sure to avoid leading questions as well. These are questions that influence the respondent to provide a certain answer. For instance, avoid a positively worded question like “How fantastic was your experience in our recent community workshop?” Instead, ask a more neutral question, such as “How would you rate your experience in our recent community workshop on a scale from 1-10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best?”

Keeping your questions neutral and straightforward will encourage respondents to speak their minds and provide you with more accurate data. 

3. Keep the survey concise and focused. 

Shorter surveys are much more effective and engaging for your audience than long surveys. In fact, one study about research surveys found that “Shorter surveys were reliable and produced higher response and completion rates [than] long surveys.”

Make your surveys as concise and focused as possible by taking these steps:

  • Aim to create a survey that takes no more than 10 minutes to complete. Pay attention not only to the number of questions you’re asking but also their complexity. A multiple-choice question is much faster to complete than a short-answer question, for instance.
  • Prioritize questions that speak directly to the information you need most. Comb through your list of questions to identify the ones that will help you gain the insights that are most essential to your goals. This may mean removing questions that may provide interesting data points but aren’t relevant to your current objectives.
  • Test the survey with your organization’s staff. First, take the survey yourself to assess its length and proofread it for any mistakes. Then, ask staff members and volunteers to do the same and report back with any issues or feedback about the length.

To create a better experience for respondents, ensure your forms are as user-friendly and accessible as possible. Use strong color contrast and ensure all form fields have descriptions outside the field itself to make the form more usable for people of all abilities. In addition, brand the form to your organization to reassure respondents that it is credible and associated with your nonprofit.

These actions will increase the likelihood that respondents will take the time to complete the form.

4. Analyze and interpret results. 

After gathering responses, thank all respondents and make a plan for interpreting the results.

The UpMetrics impact measurement guide explains the different types of analysis your nonprofit can use depending on the data you’ve collected:

  • Statistical analysis is used to assess quantitative data. For example, if you’re tracking program satisfaction rates, you can determine the percentage of respondents who are very satisfied with your services vs. those who are less satisfied.
  • Thematic analysis is used to interpret qualitative data. This process involves identifying common keywords, patterns, or themes across qualitative responses. For example, let’s say you send a survey asking stakeholders about their experience using your website to access resources. You can assess their responses for positive keywords, like “great user experience” or “highly educational content,” as well as negative trends, such as “poor accessibility” or “unclear navigation structure.”  

Combining quantitative and qualitative data analysis helps create a more well-rounded picture of your supporters and your organization’s impact. The data analysis process can be complex, so it may be helpful to use an impact measurement platform that makes it simple to view data in dashboards and run credible reports. 

5. Act on your survey findings. 

Of course, your surveys aren’t just fact-finding missions—they should result in your organization taking tangible steps to improve your operations. These tips will help you define your next steps:

  • Create an impact report to share internally. This is a document summarizing your survey findings succinctly. It should include the survey’s purpose, the main findings from your analysis, and recommendations for the next steps to take. Share this document with your nonprofit’s team to align on next actions.
  • Use your data to make informed decisions and determine the best course of action. After sharing your findings with your team, act on your data by taking informed steps to improve your operations. Sometimes, you may have to conduct a deeper investigation to help fix certain issues. For example, perhaps participants in your nonprofit’s recreational program expressed high satisfaction with the program’s activities, but wanted a simpler registration process. As a result, your organization can review your online registration form to streamline it according to supporters’ preferences.
  • Share survey results and findings with stakeholders. To show respondents that their engagement actually made a difference, share your survey findings and the next steps you’re going to take in response.

NXUnite by Nexus Marketing recommends reaching out to supporters often to maintain positive relationships: “Just like any relationship in life, staying in touch will be a crucial part of remaining connected to your donors.” Follow up with respondents a few weeks or months after you’ve had time to implement new strategies based on your survey findings and evaluate the impact of those changes. Stakeholders will appreciate your efforts to keep them in the loop and use their feedback to work toward accomplishing your mission more efficiently.


Whether you’re hoping to improve program outcomes, fundraise more effectively, or better engage with stakeholders, impact surveys can unearth the valuable insights you need to improve your organization and work more productively toward your goals. Create a survey that provides both a positive user experience and useful analytical opportunities to strengthen supporter relationships and access the helpful data you need. 


About the Author

Charles Sword, CRO at UpMetrics
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Charles Sword is the Chief Revenue Officer at UpMetrics, a leading impact measurement and management software company that’s revolutionizing the way mission-driven organizations harness data to drive positive social outcomes. With a wealth of experience in business development and strategic planning, Charles is responsible for all aspects of market development for the company and is passionate about helping the world’s leading foundations, nonprofits and impact investors to drive accelerated social and environmental change. Mr. Sword has held leadership positions for multiple market-leading technology organizations including Blueprint, CAST, and iRise among others, and continues to hone his understanding of market dynamics and innovative strategies to unlock new opportunities and drive growth at UpMetrics

Cait Abernethy, Director of Marketing at UpMetrics
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Cait Abernethy is the Director of Marketing at UpMetrics, a leading impact measurement and management software company that’s revolutionizing the way mission-driven organizations harness data to drive positive social outcomes. With a wealth of experience across leading technology organizations, Cait is responsible for all aspects of marketing for the company and is passionate about helping the world’s leading foundations, nonprofits and impact investors to drive accelerated social and environmental change.

Drew Payne, CEO at UpMetrics
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Drew Payne is an ardent advocate for education, healthcare, and community advancement, who thrives at the intersection of innovation and impact. As founder and CEO of UpMetrics, an industry-leading impact measurement and management software company, Drew's journey has been defined by his unwavering commitment to helping mission-driven organizations harness the power of their data to drive capital and resources to community.

Prior to spearheading UpMetrics, Drew founded UHV Group, where he provided operating advisory services to Blackstone portfolio companies within the real estate and education domains. His deep-seated dedication to fostering growth within these sectors fueled his passion for catalyzing transformation on a broader scale.

Drew has roots in traditional philanthropy as Vice President of the Payne Family Foundation, and has also focused on real estate and social impact investing. Born and raised in San Francisco, Drew is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Stephen Minix, Sr. Director of Community at UpMetrics
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Stephen joined UpMetrics in 2015 for one reason: a unique opportunity to continue to uplift communities. In his role as Senior Director, Community Strategy,  Stephen empowers partners to utilize their data to accelerate progress toward outcomes: informing all decisions, gaining new insights and telling their story to a wider audience. Stephen is passionate about building capacity at impact organizations as he has dedicated his life’s work to the advancement of youth and communities through education and development. He began his career by serving young people and communities in Southern California as a public school and public charter school teacher at Locke High School, coach, athletic director, administrator, district coordinator for afterschool programs and adjunct professor. He was recognized as the CIF Los Angeles City Section Athletic Director of the Year in 2015. Today, Stephen continues to be active in the community, serving as a Green Dot Public Schools Ambassador and an inaugural board member(board chair) for MENTOR California.

Stephen graduated from Pepperdine with a BS in Physical Education and a MA in Secondary Education. Stephen lives in San Diego, where he is married with three young daughters.