Planning Your Survey Goals

It is critical to have a shared understanding of the purpose and goals of any survey that your organization plans to implement. These will not only affect how you implement the survey, but will also help to build buy-in and commitment to the process and using the results.

Organizations conduct surveys of young people for a variety of reasons including:

• To gather baseline information for program design
• To incorporate young peoples’ perspectives in program design
• To strengthen programs or curriculum as part of a continuous improvement process
• To build awareness of and commitment to an issue or initiative
• To monitor growth or impact of your efforts
• To meet requirements of a funding or other partner

What are you trying to accomplish with the survey? State your purpose clearly and concisely so that all will understand and support the effort.

In addition, it is important to be clear about how the survey results will be used and who will use them. What decisions will be made based on the data? Will the findings be public? The more public and the higher stakes the decisions will be, the more care must be taken to ensure greater accuracy. These choices will determine how the findings are interpreted and used.

Use the Planning Your Survey Goals Template to help your team identify your survey purpose and goals.