Hey Steve,

The survey looks good in its broad aims. I think it will be quite effective in getting an idea of how people would like to be communicated with. At a broad level, I do have one question – if the survey is being run through the website, is that going to limit your respondents to those who are already predisposed towards this method of communication? (ie have you considered how those who don’t have internet access, or who don’t prefer that mode will respond to the survey?)

In terms of some more specific comments (and I apologise if these are really nit-picking – I get a little pedantic about spelling and grammar etc):

* In the second intro paragraph – ‘ministry leaders’ is missing the letter R

* Same paragraph – ‘Parish Council plan’. The word ‘plan’ seems out of place here (ie the sentence doesn’t make sense)

* Table that asks ‘How informed do you feel about the following:’ – In my experience of running surveys I have found it best to provide an EVEN number of options on these kind of questions. An odd number of options seems to encourage people to ‘fence-sit’ and just take the neutral position. An EVEN number of options actively encourages people to think about their answer.

* Same table – You might consider adding a line for ‘Reports on events that have happened’. We have recently had feedback at our church that people are given a lot of info about upcoming events, but frequently don’t hear reports of how the event went (a week later for example).

* The next table ‘How aware are you…’ – Although the question asks ‘how aware are you’, the options indicate that it is really asking ‘Are you aware…’

* The next question which asks how people find out info (sources) – If it applies to your church, you may add an option for ‘Phone the church office’

* Later question – ‘How often do you read the content on the back…’ – Spelling mistake here in the word ‘newsletter’: missing the letter S.

* Two questions after that – Spelling mistake in ‘e-news’: Missing the letter S.

Hope these comments are helpful!
CJ

Excellent critique CJ – you covered all my points and then some.
I was going to add ‘phone the church office’, and I would also need to have a printable copy for the numerous non-web savvy older members to complete.

So Steve, if I set up a wufoo account for my church, can I copy and edit your survey for our needs?

Cheers

Steve,
Could Gravity Forms for WordPress handle some/most/all of the functions that you used to produce this survey?

Neil

Hi CJ and Neil – love the feedback, thank you! And nitpicking is good – I do the same, and it’s an important part of quality control!

My plan was to distribute the survey via email, but also to print it out and invite people to fill out the survey at church if they don’t have email access (which is a very, very small proportion of people at church). My concern is, however, that the survey focuses on electronic communication, so I’m not sure how relevant it would be to these people anyway?

What are your thoughts on asking people for their names vs keeping responses anonymous?

Hi Neil,

in regards to Gravity Forms, I’ve given them a go in the past – I think I’ve still got an account actually. Gravity Forms could handle most if not all of the functions of the survey.

The reasons I used Wufoo are:

- I’ve already got an account with them (and know the log-in details!),
- It’s a first class product that works everytime,
- The reporting functions are excellent (very easy to create charts of data from within Wufoo),
- Other staff at church are familiar with Wufoo, so it’s easy to share the data with them.

Hi Neil, in response to your earlier question – I just checked with Wufoo and unfortunately there’s no way of transferring forms from one account to another.

I reckon keep it anonymous.

I would be adding a a section that allows for feedback on current (poor) printed communications and I want people to feel free to say what they really think!

Our church is obviously quite different to yours: 10 congregations spread over four sites, and a wide range of ages and levels of technical sophistication. We are centrally administered and financed, but each congregation functions like they are the only one! Parish-wide communications are a real challenge.

I only thought of Gravity forms, as we would not have anything in the budget for the Wufoo monthly fee, but I could easily donate the Gravity one-off fee.

Thanks for all your thought-provoking and innovative material here!

I completely understand how tight church budgets are, but keep in mind that Wufoo offers churches a 50% discount. While it is a monthly cost, I think there are also some significant savings in administration time – and there are lots of ways that Wufoo can be used in ministry – from Bible study sign-up, to feedback, to event registration and more.

I’ve received feedback from about eight people and have made numerous refinements to the survey. Thank you to all who contributed their feedback – you can see the final version here.

One of the tools I’ve tapped into is Wufoo’s ‘field rules’. In essence, these allow you to show particular fields based on the response a user gives to another field. You can read more here.

Feel free to play around with the form and submit entries – I’ll be duplicating this form and changing the name before sending it out to the church.

Hi Steve,
I think it looks great & hopefully is pretty informative to your church. Hopefully you may share some of the results with us so we can get an idea of what worked & what didn’t, especially if there are some unexpected results which is the reason we do these kinds of things.

Cheers mate