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Social media for nonprofits

5 top online survey tools for nonprofits

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Surveys

 

Wufoo, SurveyGizmo & Google Forms are among your best bets

Target audience: Nonprofits, social change organizations, citizen publishers, educators.

By Jessica Haswell
Socialbrite staff

Surveying made easy: We took a look at the five of the best survey tools on the market that can help nonprofits and other organizations get to know your users’ opinions and keep funders happy. All of these tools do more than just conduct a simple survey.

What might some of these survey tools cost you? Google is free, but beyond that most of these services offer 10 projects with 100 responses for free, unlimited surveys with 1,000 responses for about $200 per year and more advanced packages for more than $200 per month, depending on your organization’s needs. Most of the tools offer discounts of 25 to 50 percent for nonprofis or educational organizations, so make sure to check before you pony up.

Have your own favorite? Please share in the comments below.

 
Wufoo

Wufoo: Collecting more than just data

1The stand-out feature in this survey tool is the payment integration – your PayPal, Google Checkout or Authorize.net accounts can be connected to WuFoo Forms to collect donations or payments. Wufoo really breaks the survey process down, keeping the process simple and still flexible enough to customize. The actual forms and reports are as clean, customizable and beautiful as the survey process. While all of the survey tools listed here offer discounts for nonprofits, Wufoo offers an impressive 50 percent discount.

SurveyGizmo

SurveyGizmo: Bang for your buck

2When Socialbrite surveyed all the survey tools last spring to create an interactive tool [link fixed] for TechSoup Global, we selected SurveyGizmo — because it had more capabilities than the rest of the field. SurveyGizmo offers every feature your organization could ever need or want for a slightly lower cost. The service has maximum customization and offers a wide range of packages for small to large organizations. The extra offer here is the Professional Service and Training they offer at an additional cost for organizations that want to learn a bit more or outsource some work from the office.

google-survey-form

Google Forms: Best part? It’s free

3If you’re looking for a free service for small-scale surveying, this is hands down the best option out there. All of the other survey tools do have a free option, which usually entails a limit to the amount of surveys (10 per month) and responses (100 per month). Google Forms offers an unlimited amount of surveys and space for well over 1,000 responses. Themes for your survey are plentiful, the software makes email or web embedding easy and, being Google, there are a number of ways to visualize your data. To use it, just go to Google Docs and create a new form.

SurveyMonkey: The big gorilla

4Here’s a no-frills, no-fluff survey tool best used for organizations of any size looking to aggregate a lot of data. SurveyMonkey, perhaps the best-known survey tool in the field, offers a handy keyword search feature to help users navigate their multiple surveys, security assurance and question logic add-ons to maximize the efficiency and accuracy of your surveys. For those looking for a no-nonsense survey tool that does the basics and does them well, SurveyMonkey is a reliable option.

surveyz

Surveyz: Heavy-duty surveying

5For organizations looking for something more layered and complex than a simple survey Surveyz, by Qualtrics, offers highly advanced survey logic and sophisticated analysis for professional research. This software offers many similar features to the other survey tools but at a much greater level of sophistication – taking reports, analysis and logistics to a whole new level of customization. This kind of a service comes at a much higher cost, but if you’re a nonprofit, you can get this service for a song.

Some others worth checking out are Poll Daddy, Zoomerang, Vizu and Key Survey.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Hi Jessica and SocialBrite readers,

    I wanted you to know that SurveyGizmo also offers 50% discounts for non-profits and academic institutions. Also students can get our top dog Enterprise account completely free. That account has really deep logic advanced logic and analysis if that's what's your looking for.

    Thanks and take care,
    Scott

    CEO
    SurveyGizmo

    PS – Oh and by the way the link you meant to share for the Interactive tool was http://techsoup-global.interactive-tool.sgizmo.co… (the one you shared was your unique personalized link). Hope that helps!

    • Thanks Scott! Sorry for the oversight on the discount, glad to hear that! We've fixed the link. – jd

  3. Another form and survey tool would be PandaForm.com, they have made custom fields and plans for NGOs, and also encourage NGOs and education institutions to ask for special pricing and plans. GreenPeace HK use PandaForm as their event and volunteer registration forms.

  4. The recently launched EasyGoingSurvey (http://www.EasyGoingSurvey.com ) also proves to be a highly useful online research option. It is easy to use, allows unlimited surveys to be conducted (with as many questions as you want) and features graphical and statistical analysis.
    One aspect that surely would interest those of the SocialBrite community is that EasyGoingSurveys.com offers the full power of its software to any NGO or academic institute for free.

  5. Thanks for the list, I didn't know about Wufoo before and will be looking into them. I like how Scott from SurveyGizmo was the only one to clearly identify himself as being affiliated with the company he is referencing. At least Jane and Katherine used their co's websites to show their affiliation but could have done so in their comment as well and I'm betting David is associated to EasyGoingSurvey but is doing a bit of astroturfing – I for one appreciate full disclosure.
    Thanks again, Fred

  6. And yet research is so much more than just surveys alone! Consider panels, polls, in- and external creativity sessions. Research can be a manageable process. Check us out!

  8. Jessica,

    Thanks for this useful article. We're a smaller nonprofit looking to conduct a one time survey that will allow us to tell us who is taking the survey and retain control of it. I want to have control of a scenario where people keep forwarding our e-mail and non-members try to bias the survey answers… Which tool would be best to accomplish a survey and retain control?

  9. Looking for a survey, questionnaire, or market research tool? http://www.rationalsurvey.com is the answer for you. With features like social media integration, reusable questions, comprehensive analytics, and so many more, there is no reason to look further.

  10. Hi, Surprised you did not include LimeSurvey. As something you host yourself it is a good alternative. I loaded it on our website using Fantastico via cPanel and it just worked. Actively being developed so a good bet if you want more control with no limits (except your badnwidth).

  11. For your consideration:

    The Survey™ Project is a free web based survey and (dataentry)forms toolkit for processing & gathering data online. Survey™ is ideal for anyone who needs to collect valuable information from customers, visitors or employees efficiently. Survey™ is a open source web application written in ASP.NET and C#.

    A demo version is available at http://survey.dotnetnukes.nl
    Sources and releases are published at http://survey.codeplex.com

  12. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  13. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  14. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  15. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  16. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  17. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  18. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  19. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  20. If you are looking for a mobile survey solution, I would recommend http://www.mobosurvey.com. Mobosurvey helps you quickly create online surveys that are accessible from any internet capable devices. Your users can access the same survey from their smart phones, tablets, laptops, or desktops at anytime.

  21. Probably also worth checking out SurveyBuilder, where you can do unlimited surveys for free, no monthly subscription fees as you find at some other survey sites. No cost to buy, no monthly fees, no limits on size or number of surveys or responses. Includes reporting with export to Excel.

    http://www.surveybuilder.com

  23. Hey Jessica,

    The existing free survey solutions offer a basic interface for survey creation, and there is no or almost no report available in most of them except basic charts and tables.
    That is why we created EVAL&GO, check out our free account and see for yourself.
    We managed to offer options only found in elitistic survey software tools, and made theme available for everyone. http://www.evalandgo.com

  25. I’ve dealt with a few survey makers since the 2008 election cycle with various results. Nowadays I use SurveyBuilder since it’s free and easier to keep track of results. I can use multiple pages there, too, if the theme is broad or complex. No waiting between screens either.

  28. You should also look at Opinions4Good (Op4G.com). They are an online survey tool and all of their members donate at least 25% of their earnings to non profits! I support the arthritis foundation and they earned something like $17,000 from Op4G last year.

    • We use http://www.datagle.com too. We love the wyswg editing and easy click feature. You can format your survey really well and make it easier to click. Survey taker would be more happy to complete the survey. Remember, No monthly subscription fee!

  32. I am using http://mysurveylab.com/ for 2 years now. They are upgrading and adding new features every month and have great support. And I think the price is very good too but currently I do not really care, cause I am really happy with this application.

  33. Hi, Having worked with one of the survey companies listed above (as well as another that I’m a bit surprised isn’t already listed) I’d like to mention the company I am now working with, Ask Your Target Market (aytm.com). The survey tool is free to use and offers more than you find in most of the other free accounts including:

    Unlimited surveys
    Unlimited responses
    Unlimited questions
    Skip Logic
    Cross-tabs
    Filtering
    Data Export (Every bar and pie chart can be downloaded in seconds as a JPG, PNG, PDF or SWF and you can also export and download the raw survey results data to Excel or as CSV)

    In addition to our free survey tool we offer a built-in DIY panel so when you need respondents you can utilize that as well, although there is a cost involved for ‘Panel Surveys’.

    For Panel Surveys, we do have a Barter Program that offers a select group of companies the opportunity to obtain target market research with zero cash outlay. We also have a Pro Bono Program for non-profits or open source software initiatives offering discounts of up to 50% for those who qualify.

    Please feel free to get in touch with any questions,
    Donna
    aytm.com

    • Yep in my company we already use Inqwise’s platform, this a very good enterprise survey software, with many more features, ajaxian 100% web-base platform.

      Basil

  36. Well, I would have to add our own to the list or someone here may kick me. onCue lets you build Surveys, Polls and Forms as you see fit and if you happen to use our CRM it can integrate and tie the results to the record. But that is not required. We have a sample survey up at: http://www.antharia.com/oncue/index.php?survey_id=1 which shows that one of the benefits is the survey can either mimic your site design or live within your site itself.

    Thanks for such great resources!
    Jordan

  37. Hi friend really I don’t know any thing abot the survey. Once I go through with your article I got new information. Thank you for your article.

  38. I am very surprised why SoGoSurvey.com is not featured in this list.It is an excellent software for nonprofits and its free version is better than the paid version of other sites.Highly recommended.

  39. Online surveys can be a huge help in understanding what your constituents think and how successful your programs are, without breaking your budget.please visit at Jasico Website.

  40. The best survey software, for me, in terms of layout, features and ease of use is http://www.smart-survey.co.uk

    I had no trouble getting to grips with this software and the features that they offer are more than sufficient.

    They are also, UK based so the support was more efficient than American survey sites.

  41. Try http://surveywizz.com – its great for setting up surveys quickly and they look pretty good. For people with their own business site you can also add a pretty good looking survey widget.

  42. I tried couple of survey tools myself and found http://www.sogosurvey.com to be the best.The best thing is the support that they provide even for FREE customers.Their Rules & Alert and Merge Survey Features are the best I have ever seen in any survey tool.

  49. Here are my recommendations:

    SoGoSurvey
    Fluid Survey
    Qualtrics
    SurveyMonkey
    Zoomerang

  50. Used this awesome “Chain Invites” feature on SoGoSurvey.com and distributed my survey to over 1000 members. I think they are the only online survey software that offer this feature. Looks good!