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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

  1. Well, SoGoSurvey and SurveyMonkey have been in the business for quiet sometime. They both are equally good. SoGoSurvey provides more options for detailed and research based surveys, whereas Survey Monkey is quick and simple.

  2. Well, all the survey tools are almost the same. Surveymonkey is like the “King of the jungle” for online survey designing, but recently there are some new players joining the game that are giving some pretty awesome features ex. SoGoSurvey. You should try them out! Great deal for the price.

  3. Useful information, but I somewhat don’t quiet agree with the list. I have used two survey designing tolls (surveymonkey & sogosurvey), which are indeed the best. For first time users Surveymonkey is easy and gets you started in minutes, where as Sogosurvey offers the most well researched survey templates and guides for professionals. Both are highly recommended!

  4. Survey Monkey has been spending huge amount of dollars in acquiring other small players in the business and have tried to monopolize the entire survey designing domain, where as SoGoSurvey has taken up a different approach: Being in the technical and scientific survey business from almost a decade, SoGoSurvey is slowly spreading its wings and are more concerned on offering a high end technical product, rather than gaining online popularity.

  8. I’ve been doing surveys for a long time and i found QuickTapSurvey to be groundbreaking! If you have an iPad and you’d like to survey people, QuickTapSurvey is perfect for you. The best part is that surveys are fully customizable from background images to splash screens to question types. Check them out http://www.quicktapsurvey.com

  10. @sarah and @SMichelle  previously i was using Fluid Survey but after recommendations here about http://www.sogosurvey.com i must say they are the silent winners in Survey industry. They are a great tool, amazing pricing, really good features. I bought the Professional account and it allows me to do almost anything i wish to, with the survey. Already sent out my first to the students for their feedback.
    Thanks for sharing
     

  11. Earlier when i used to refer this site for survey tools information there was no talk about SoGoSurvey at all and now I can see more and more comments about how good the product is. I tried it and was amazed by the features it has and also how old it is in the market. I am highly impressed with http://www.sogosurvey.com

  12. As a graduate student, I found SoGoSurvey.com to be a pretty formidable survey maker.  The interface is sophisticated and easy to use.  For me, the other big name sites had limits with their basic free platforms and this became a problem when working on a more complex survey for my thesis.  The best part is that if you a student, SoGo will provide you with a free license.  You won’t have to worry about dealing with the high costs on the other sites.  So I’m with SoGo.  I look forward to seeing everything that it can do.  

  18. Hey @ChristinaSao  Why don’t you try it out.I tried and now i have upgraded my account to an enterprise one which comprises of all the features and is an easy tool to use. I am sure you’ll love it.

  19. I also started using SoGoSurvey.com as a free user just to test the features of the product. They offer many things in their survey tool which are really good and very easy to use. I would prefer SoGoSurvey for its simple approach.

  20. I personally feel that the list needs some kind of updation to it as it has none of the latest tools in it like Fluid Survey and SoGoSurvey as they are the best one’s in market.I did research on both of them and i know that they certainly some of the best in the market.

  22. I have been using Survey Monkey for a log time and they are really good at what Survey business and the most famous tool too. Try it out and know the difference.

  24. Ok !!!! Here is a great deal I came to know in terms of discount for SoGoSurvey Yearly Enterprise Account. Goto the home page of SoGoSurvey after you’ve login to your Free Account. Click on Upgrade and select the Enterprise Package. If on the payment page you enter SOGOEN in the Promo Code section and you will see that they offer you a $499 deal instead of $590. I purchased one. Try the code, maybe you get lucky too.

  26. I use Fluid Survey and it has been good to me so far. I switched to Fluid Survey after using Survey Monkey because i thought Survey Monkey was a bit complex in survey creation.

  27. Hello @Marc Keith
     I would like to give you a suggestion here, try SoGoSurvey. They have all the features in the world and are very good.They have been in the business for a while and they are being talked about at various places online. Try them for free and upgrade only if you like them. I did the same and am a happy customer. :)

  28. Hi all,
     
    My name is Alfred, I work for http://eSurv.org a not for profit hosted survey company.
    You might like to try our tool as it is free. Our tool is sponsored by research institutions.

  30. Survey Face is a free online Survey tool, offers unlimited surveys, responses, Address book maintenance, Track responses and reminders, Automatic response alerts, PDF, EXCEL, CSV, HTML and XML Reports, Share Results, Password Protection and much more. You can visit Survey Face at http://www.surveyface.com

  32. You can also add heycrowd.com to your list (the survey creation part is there : heycrowd.com/surveys/creation

  33. Survey Face is a free online Survey tool, offers unlimited surveys, responses, Address book maintenance, Track responses and reminders, Automatic response alerts, PDF, EXCEL, CSV, HTML and XML Reports, Share Results, Password Protection and much more. You can visit Survey Face at http://www.surveyface.com

  34. You’ve missed out on SoGoSurvey. I have been using their online survey software for years now and highly recommend it! They offer free accounts to non-profit organizations as well as students.

  36. i think you guys missed out SoGoSurvey! i have used and think they are great and affordable!

  38. There are a lot of fantastic tools here, but I thought you guys might like to give my new web app a try: http://surveylitics.com
     
    It lets you create surveys by sending us an email (yup, survey creation via email – it’s that easy!). We’d love to get your feedback!

  39. I have just signed up to a new tool called survey moz and would say that, although not being a top tool, they certainly will be.
     
    I urge anyone to sign up and see for yourself. http://www.surveymoz.com

  40. I was searching arounbd for the best questionnaire tool for my school project and someone mentioned SoGoSurvey. And lemme tell you, it was amazing! Ease of use and no hassle! And the free student license incorporated all the main features I needed.  I got an A+ for my project! Just perfect!

  42. As a non-profit, I got a full featured premium account with SurveyMoz.com, even though their prices are the cheapest online anyway! :)

  43. SoGoSurvey offers free online survey licenses to non-profit organizations as well as students and faculty.

  44. I’ve just started using Sogo survey tools and it sounds great and suitable for my phd research thesis

    • @sami666 Hi Samy, that’s good to hear. Datafield is also working with lots of university and researcher doing on-field surveys and in need of mobile / offline survey application.  I believe it could be useful for you too. 
       
      Antoine @DatafieldApp

  47. I’m surprised that no-one here mentioned http://www.addpoll.com. These guys are the best I’ve used so far (and believe me, I’ve tried many), their free account provides features that are more than enough if you don’t need them for a huge enterprise and even if you do – the prices for the paid plans are more than affordable. I’ve been using them for surveys, polls and forms in the last 2 years and am more than happy with their features, customization options and customer support team!