What is CiviSurvey?

CiviCampaign provides a standardised way to record responses to offline surveys and generate reports from the survey data. Each individual’s responses are captured in an activity record of the type Survey.

The Survey feature records responses from existing contacts. To gather responses from individuals who may not exist in your database, use CiviCampaign’s Petition feature. See Petition for more information.

Scenario: Public housing survey

Toft Organisation For Tenants (TOFT) focuses on protecting tenants’ rights and lobbying for affordable housing. The organisation wanted to understand housing conditions in one particular neighborhood: how widespread the issues were and which were most pressing for the community. It decided to survey tenants about basic housing conditions and complaints about landlords. A focus group determined what questions to ask and whom to survey.

A TOFT staff member created a new survey in CiviCRM and built a list of respondents from existing contacts. She generated and printed a walk list report for the volunteers carrying out the survey.

Over one week, volunteers visited selected public housing buildings, interviewed respondents, and recorded their responses on the walk list. At the end of each day, they entered each individual’s responses into CiviCRM. Some did this from home; others returned to TOFT’s office to use computers there.

After the survey, the programme leader used CiviCRM to search activities for the group of individuals surveyed. They generated reports to analyse the responses and inform the campaign’s next strategy. The results also helped frame messages and communications about the issues affecting the neighborhood.