Survey Software for Nonprofits
October 9, 2005
Many nonprofits are starting to have interest in Survey software, as the get more into Outcome definition and measurement. Often the need for conducting a survey is part of the recommendations.
There is LOTS of software available for doing surveys. Many of them have online, web based components. And some also have email components that do not require any specific email software at the respondent end, other than ability to handle HTML.
For small nonprofits, especially those serving basic human needs such as food, clothing, shelter and emergency funds to avoid utility cutoff, pay for a needed prescription or pay rent to avoid eviction, access to a computer, the internet or email may be problematic. In fact, simply locating the people who were served may be difficult.
As I looked into software for some of my clients, who provide services of this type, I focused on paper based surveys that can be completed by telephone surveys and then data entry. One possible extension was perhaps mailing with pre-paid, or USPS free postage response envelopes enclosed (the kind where the postage is charged to you ONLY based on usage of the preaddressed response envelopes.
After some brief, not scientific trial, I found I liked Survey Gold Standard Edition the best of the lower cost products.
http://surveygold.com/ - approx $150 for a one time license
They offer a free 30 day trial of the software that appears not to be limited in how you can use it.
Some comments on my experience:
Installation – Straightforward if you took care to Unzip with the option that preserves the subdirectories. Otherwise installation failed with files that could not be located.
Print Survey form – worked slick
Entry of results via Windows – no issues
Types of questions supported:
Free format text
Select one choice
Select one or more from the choices
Select from a drop down list box.
The software includes sample questions with the options to select from already created.
Web – it has the capability to publish to the web but I did not test it.
Export – yes via several choices of output
You can read 29 reviews from users of this software including one from a nonprofit:
http://www.download.com/SurveyGold-Standard-Edition/3640-2650_4-10227419.html
Of course, it would also be a good idea to search the internet for new low cost products.
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Another good resource is this TechSoup article “Use Online Surveys to Get the Feedback you Need”.
http://www.techsoup.org/howto/articles/internet/page2152.cfm
It has a list with pricing of several survey
software products. It also has a list of
features to consider when choosing a software product and a section entitled “Ten Steps to
Conducting an Effective Online Survey”.
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Another good resource is this TechSoup
discussion thread
Which discussed Survey Gold and some other low cost and free survey software.
Also this Tech Soup discussion thread:
http://www.techsoup.com/fb/index.cfm?fuseaction=forums.showSingleTopic&forum=2009&id=63637&cid=117