You hosted a beautiful (or daring, or fun, or all of the above) event and hit your fundraising goal: on to planning the next one, right? Not quite: taking a moment to ask your guests what they thought of your event can net you important data you can use to take your events to the next level. Here we’ll outline some examples of post-event survey questions as well as tips on how to write your own.
Why send out a post-event survey?
Even if you and your staff and volunteers felt like it was a successful event, you can’t have eyes and ears everywhere. There might be guests who disagree. Or, even if they did have a good time, they might have ideas or opinions that can challenge or reinforce your own definitions of “success.”
Sending out a post-event survey can also help guests feel heard. You can even make your survey link part of your “thank you” note email, where you express gratitude for their attendance and donations. Asking for their thoughts can help show them that you value more than their money.
7 Tips for Writing Nonprofit Post-Event Survey Questions
There’s more to survey design than emailing out a few multiple choice questions. The way you design your survey and phrase your questions can be the difference between getting a significant number of responses that have useful insights for you. Below are some best practices for creating quick and easy-to-understand surveys that your donors/guests will be happy to fill out.
Send it promptly
Sending your post-event survey within a few days to a week afterward is the best way to get people’s thoughts and opinions while the experience is still fresh in their minds. You can share the total amount raised by the event in the same email and thank them for their generosity, but could they help you out one more time by taking this quick survey?
Not everyone will take the survey, but sending it out promptly will net you more participation than waiting several weeks when people will look at your email and think “I don’t remember what I thought of the music” and hit Delete.
Keep it short and simple
Your survey shouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes and that is the upper limit of acceptable. Take your survey yourself or ask someone else to test it out for you. If it takes longer than five or 10 minutes your guests are likely to abandon it halfway through, or not even start it.
Reassure them in your email that the survey should take no longer than 10 minutes and that you will be using their feedback to help make future events even more enjoyable and successful.
Yes/no? Why/why not?
Decide on one or two question/answer formats max. If you want people to rate certain aspects of the event from 1-10 make sure most of your questions can be answered this way. Otherwise, people are likely to get confused if your survey uses a different answer format for each question.
There are many survey forms out there, but here are a few different ways you can format or phrase your post-event survey questions:
- Satisfaction scale of 1-5, or 1-10 (make sure you make it clear which end of the scale is best and worst)
- No number scale but multiple choice, for example:
- Very happy
- Somewhat happy
- Somewhat unhappy
- Unhappy
- Open ended answer boxes for each question
- Yes, No, or No opinion or NA
Stick to actionable topics
What questions should you ask your guests? Questions about the food, music, entertainment, or the venue? About the keynote speaker or MC? About what types of fundraising or volunteer events they’re likely to attend in the future?
It might be tempting to start asking your guests more philosophical questions or big picture questions. For example, maybe someday you want to host a large, glittery gala and want to ask “Would you be interested in attending a black-tie fundraising gala?” But can you realistically put on that gala in the next year or two? If not, this isn’t a good use of your limited survey space.
Ask questions whose answers will provide actionable information. For example, if people loved the food, you can start working on your relationship with that vendor right now. Or, if you ask about the venue, people might let you know that the bathroom lines were irritating, or that the space was not as accessible to walkers and wheelchairs as they had hoped.
Anonymous vs. confidential
Sometimes people use these terms interchangeably, but they are different. It’s important to be clear in any survey you send out whether responses will be anonymous or confidential, even one that feels as inconsequential as a post-event survey.
- Anonymous: You aren’t tracking any identifiable information at all with your survey responses.
- Confidential: Although you are gathering identifiable information with each response, this information will not be shared with the public.
Ask about them
Consider including optional demographic questions. As per the above point, these will either be confidential or anonymously provided, however knowing more about your donors en masse can be very insightful.
Asking their age, gender, location, income bracket, and other questions can help you understand who you should be marketing to in the future.
Anything else?
Not everyone will use it, but it can be valuable to offer one last text box that says something along the lines of “Is there anything else you want us to know about our event?” This will help you gain insights into aspects of your event that you might not have thought to ask about.
Examples of Post-Event Survey Questions
Here are some examples of questions you can ask or customize to suit your organization’s needs.
- What portion of the event most excited/interested you? (sample answers could be: the silent auction, the paddle raise, the performers, etc.)
- Were there any aspects of the event that disappointed you? Why?
- Please rate your satisfaction with…(the food, entertainment, MC, decorations, venue, etc.)
- Was the check-in process smooth?
- Was the check out process smooth? (in the case of auction items)
- Is this the first time you attended this event?
- How likely are you to attend this event next year? (1= not likely, 10 = very likely)
- Would you recommend this event to others in the future?
- Would you be interested in volunteering to help organize this event next year?
- Do you feel like our event was worth the price of admission?
- Is there anything you would like to see next year that you didn’t see this year?
Survey Says
By following our tips above you’ll be able to gather useful insights from your event guests. Use our guide above to decide on your own post-event survey questions: send it promptly, keep it short and consistent, ask actionable questions, be transparent about their data (or lack thereof), and allow them to offer their own thoughts. Finally, consider asking them some demographic questions, to inform your own donor research. Post-event surveys are a small but powerful way to learn about what works and what doesn’t at your fundraising events.
