Participant feedback survey

Asking the people you serve what they think is one of the simplest ways to improve a program, and to show funders what difference you make. This template is a short survey you can hand out on paper, read aloud or put online. It asks a few questions about what changed and how people were treated, and ends with an open question. Our guide to measuring impact explains how to choose what to measure and how to look at the results.

How to adapt it

• Keep it short. Choose the questions that match the outcomes in your logic model, and cut the rest. A survey people finish beats a long one they abandon.
• Use plain words and short sentences. Test it on two or three people before you use it, and change anything they stumble over.
• Translate it into the languages your participants read, and offer to read it aloud. Let people answer in their own language.
• Ask the same questions each time (for example, at the start and end of a program) so you can compare.
• Make it anonymous if you can, and say so. If you need names (for example, to follow up), say why, and keep the answers separate from contact details.
• Never make help depend on answering. Say clearly that skipping the survey, or any question, won't affect the help people receive.

Privacy

The FTC's guide to protecting personal information sums up the approach: "Keep only what you need for your business" and "Properly dispose of what you no longer need." For a feedback survey, that means:

• don't ask for information you won't use, such as full date of birth or address
• avoid sensitive topics (health, immigration status, income, trauma) unless you truly need them and know how you'll protect the answers
• keep completed surveys somewhere only the people analyzing them can see, and destroy them when you're done
• report results as totals or anonymous quotes, never in a way that identifies someone

Our data privacy guide covers this in more detail.