Delivering A Survey

Maya Lefkowich
Dec 12
8 min read

Evaluation Method, Survey Delivery, Steps, Reflections on Practice

Envelope with letter, paper airplane, and chat bubbles flying out over muted purple tablet. Icons for interaction and communication.

You invested your time and energy in crafting the perfect survey. Every question is clear. The logic flows beautifully. You're confident that this will provide the insights your program desperately needs. You hit publish, send it to your mailing list, and wait for responses to roll in.

Three days later: a handful of responses. Mostly incomplete.

Sound familiar? You're not alone. Even the most thoughtfully designed surveys fail when delivery goes wrong. Here are 7 steps to help ensure your next survey actually reaches the right people - and motivates them to respond."

Step # 1: Create a Calendar of “Asks”

A woman running away from a wave of email requests

Nothing is worse than overwhelming your participant pool with multiple, competing, or inappropriate requests for survey participation. If you have multiple surveys running simultaneously, are cross-promoting surveys for external partners, or have back-to-back surveys stacked on top of each other, people may get confused.

Didn’t I already fill that out? Wait, which one is this? You’re asking me for more?

And, if your survey feels inappropriately timed, people will become suspicious of your motives. Regardless of how much you ask of your community, it is a good idea to get organized by setting up a survey calendar:

First, put all of your deadlines when data are due (e.g., funder reports, AGMs, community feedback sessions)
Then, block out low-engagement “no go” periods, like holidays. Your community might have additional context-specific times that are rough for gathering feedback (e.g., exam time for students, school holidays for parents)
Factor in the lead time you need to clean, analyze, and compile your data before it needs to be reported (this may take a few weeks, so be generous)
Finally, add your survey(s). If you have more than one you plan to publish corresponding to different projects or grant requirements, make sure the timing does not overlap. Depending on the length of the sampling period, you may need 1 or 2 reminders to keep the request top-of-mind. Even a short routine survey at the end of a program or event may still need a next-day or next-week reminder to ensure people get around to it.

Pro tip:

The more time you have between surveys, the better. Spacing out requests for participation helps mitigate the risk of fatiguing your community and contributing to confusion or distrust. You may need to delay one survey to ensure another one succeeds. Be prepared to ask your funder or board for wiggle room on deadlines to promote a more thoughtful approach and yield higher-quality data.

If you have already over-surveyed your network, it may take time to see participation rates bounce back. Be patient! Consider pausing surveys temporarily, and exploring other feedback options or making good use of the data you already have.

Step # 2: Choose a Sampling Strategy Thoughtfully

A survey only works if the right people respond. Getting your survey in front of the right folks requires some careful consideration around (a) who you want to reach and (b) how best to reach them.

If these individuals are directly in your network, it may be easy enough to send a direct email. But, if they aren’t, you may need

to work with partners in your network or gatekeeping organizations (e.g., unions, colleges, collectives, or associations) to help broker introductions for you and send requests for participation on your behalf. This will require a time investment to research organizations or groups that can help you reach the desired audience, craft a compelling request, and follow up to maintain that relationship over time.

The communication channel(s) you choose to use also matter. For example, your target population may engage with emails, newsletters, social media, word of mouth, or old-school posters with QR codes differently. Asking around to see how folks in this group prefer to be reached will pay off. Being prepared with a few different strategies across multiple channels can help (e.g., sending an email and including a call-to-action in your newsletter). If you are working with partners or gatekeeping organizations, give clear instructions and communication materials to support participation over their multiple platforms (e.g., an initial email, a blurb for their newsletter, and a final reminder a week before the survey closes).

Warning:

A robot with six arms interacts with six laptops in a purple setting, featuring speech bubbles.

Social media requires extra strategy. If you serve the general public or have an anonymous clientele, social platforms might be your best bet. Plan ahead. How will you include survey links on platforms like Instagram? How will you filter out bots and participants who are out of scope? And most importantly, how will you cut through the noise on platforms designed for quick, single-use engagement? Consider your audience's preferred platforms and establish a clear filtering strategy before posting.

Step # 3: Be Attentive in the Right Ways

Sending out a survey can be a great way to communicate that you care about your community, are interested in their thoughts, and want to use their insights to improve your programs and services for them. But, it is important to read the room. Choose your moment wisely to avoid tokenism, empty gestures, or out-of-touch decision-making.

For example, as queer consultants, we find it to be in poor taste when organizations launch a survey about 2SLGBTQ+ clients’ experiences during Pride Month. There is already enough rainbow-washing with organizations jumping into the #Pride hashtag to garner attention. If you really cared about the experiences of 2SLGBTQ+ clients, you would be paying attention to their insights and experiences year-round. So, anytime is a good time to ask. However, asking only during Pride means that during a time when your organization could be engaging in professional development, self-reflection, and learning, you are instead asking the 2SLGBTQ+ community to volunteer their time and energy to educate you. Not a great message to be sending.

Step # 4: Incentives

Computer screen displaying a thank-you message for survey completion, with a gift icon. Includes raffle prize details and notification date. — What not to do - shady incentive example

Participating in a survey is work. Your community is offering their time and energy to educate you about something. That labour should be reciprocated and acknowledged. Match your incentive to the ask. The sweet spot is meaningful but not coercive - something that says 'we value your time' without making people feel like they're only participating for the reward or

on the hook to participate if they don’t really want to. For example, a coffee shop gift card works for a 5-minute feedback survey about your last workshop. But if you're asking people to share vulnerable experiences or invest 20 minutes of their time, your incentive should reflect that investment.

Warning:

If you are offering a gift, you will need to contact people to coordinate. This is where numerous teams and consultants alike often get into trouble. If you promised anonymity in your survey, the request for contact information must be optional and separate from your survey. Automatically collecting and linking data to emails or names without the option to opt in or out is unethical. In our practice, we use a separate sign-up link for gifts, ensuring that we cannot link survey responses to individuals' contact information. When I see the thank-you message pop-up at the end of a survey that indicates I have already been entered into a raffle or the organization already has my name and contact information (shown above), the organization responsible for the survey loses my trust, respect, and engagement moving forward.

Step # 5: Work as a Team

If you have a communications team, loop them in as soon as possible! Crafting compelling email invitations, attention-grabbing

newsletter blurbs, and social media posts that cut through the chaos of competing content takes time. Ensure your communications team has sufficient lead time and information to do their job well. Be prepared to let them know:

Two pairs of people in yellow and blue outfits interact. One pair discusses over a laptop, the other with a tablet. Scene is communicative and cooperative.

What the survey is about
Who it is for
Why people should bother
What people can expect
When the survey is closing

If you’re unsure of these answers, don’t send your survey out!

Hot Tip:

Be kind and clear when forwarding the survey to the communications team. What else are they expected to do prior to launching the survey? For example, are you expecting them to proofread or beta-test the survey (e.g., check for and correct typos). Are they expected to do anything while the survey is live - like monitor completion and engagement, flag issues, or respond to emerging questions? What about after the survey closes? Should they communicate back with the community to close the loop (see Step 7)? Your team is already working hard, don't make them guess or stress over unclear expectations.

Step # 6: Monitor & Pivot

Don’t wait until the survey closes to learn that only a handful of people completed your survey, and the answers are mostly incomplete. Set key milestones to check in on your survey’s performance. And, decide who is responsible for checking.

Participation rates are typically highest on the day the communication is sent or the day after. If you aren’t seeing a steady increase during your sampling period with healthy spikes in your numbers right after communication, be ready to pivot. Could you try an alternative communication strategy or channel? Or do you need to pause and try again at another time of year? Sometimes investing time and energy into changing directions is the most cost-effective strategy. The most expensive survey is the one that fails.

Step # 7: Close the Loop

Once your survey is complete and you have your data, how will you communicate findings back to your participant pool? Often, people are motivated to participate because they are curious about or invested in the topic, want to feel understood and that their insights contributed to something, and see how their experiences compare to those of others. To promote reciprocity, demonstrate that you are listening to your community, and build trust for further engagement, it is a good idea to share something back.

For example, I (Maya) participated in a survey about my experience as a queer business owner. I answered vulnerable and intensive questions about my experience, hoping to help inform better advocacy, support, and understanding for my community. Some months later, I discovered that the results had been published in a paid subscription-only newspaper. Not sharing the findings back broke my trust and left a bad impression.

Pro Tip:

We know that most people are hesitant to share findings back for three reasons:

Organizations are worried about their reputation if findings are critical (e.g., a recent program flopped).
Teams can be nervous or embarrassed if the survey itself fails and there are no reliable findings to share back.
It takes another time investment to circle back.

We find that honesty and regular communication are the best ways to build trust and honour important relationships. Even if you had glowing reviews, people are more likely to trust your findings if there is an area for improvement. Otherwise, you may be perceived as cherry-picking positive reviews. If your survey didn’t work and you wasted people’s time, or your program isn’t up to par, your community will likely respect you more if you own up to the shortcomings and demonstrate a genuine intention to use the insights they provided to improve. Without closing the loop and sharing the findings, people might stop participating because they don’t see the value. Not only will this make future surveys more challenging to sample for, but you will also jeopardize your relationships and standing in the community, as extracting data without giving anything back is disrespectful and unsustainable.

The Bottom Line

Your survey is only as strong as the community trust behind it. When you plan thoughtfully, communicate clearly, and follow through on your promises, you're not just collecting data - you're building relationships that make a future survey more successful.

Survey delivery isn't just about data collection - it's about demonstrating that your organization listens, learns, and acts on the feedback from your community. Get it right, and you'll have engaged participants for years to come.