Crafting Strong Volunteer Survey Questions: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations

Volunteer surveys are one of the most important ways to monitor your volunteer program, enhance satisfaction and engagement rates, and identify areas for improvement. However, your surveys are only as good as your questions.

Follow this guide to learn how to craft strong volunteer survey questions and turn them into actionable insights for your organization.

What is a Volunteer Survey?

A volunteer survey is a method of gathering feedback from your volunteer base. Surveys typically consist of questions that gather demographic information, interests, skills availability, and opinions.

You can distribute a survey at any point of the volunteer experience. They are instrumental in gauging reactions and satisfaction immediately after an event. Still, they can also be employed to learn more about perspective volunteers, match volunteers with tasks that suit their skill sets, or understand why a volunteer decided to leave the program.

The Benefits of Volunteer Surveys

Surveys give you an accurate overview of your nonprofit organization from the volunteer perspective. The benefits of volunteer surveys include:

• Increased impact and productivity
• Improved volunteer engagement, satisfaction, and retention
• Refined donor segmentation
• More comprehensive training and onboarding processes
• Streamlined operations
• Better task delegation
• Reduced program costs
• Improved return on investment
• More robust program analytics
• Actionable insights

Effective volunteer surveys help you optimize your program for maximum impact and engagement—but only if you know how which volunteer survey questions to ask.

How to Create Strong Volunteer Survey Questions

The best volunteer surveys have a specific goal in mind. To make the most of your volunteer survey questions, you need to determine what information you need. Why do you want this data? What impact will it make on your volunteer program?

Consider the following survey goals:

• Gauging volunteer satisfaction
• Measuring volunteer engagement
• Improving volunteer recruitment
• Refining volunteer placement
• Expanding volunteer impact

Once you have your survey goal in mind, it’s time to come up with your questions. As you’re writing, remember to:

• Keep surveys short and focused: While you may have multiple areas of interest, volunteers are unlikely to complete an extensive survey, and you will have difficulty analyzing all of that data at once. Tailor your survey to one goal at once; you can always distribute another survey later. Surveys should take about 5-10 minutes to complete, which translates to 3-10 questions.
• Use a combination of question types. Multiple choice, yes/no, and numbered scale questions are all easy to quantify, so we recommend using them for the majority of your survey. However, open-ended questions are also extremely valuable, because it gives your volunteers a chance to expand on a situation with greater nuance.
• Make your questions specific: Don’t try to address more than one topic per question, and don’t get bogged down in unnecessary words. Clear and concise is the name of the game.
• Avoid leading questions: Keep your question’s language as objective as possible so that your volunteers don’t feel pressured to respond a certain way. Leading questions can obscure valuable insights and discourage volunteers from being open and honest.
• Add “other” options: When you use multiple-choice questions, leave space for greater personalization so that volunteers don’t end up selecting an option that doesn’t fit them. Unless the options are truly limited—like a list of specific volunteer positions available—provide an option for Other (please specify).
• End your survey with an open-ended question: There may be pertinent information that you did not consider when you wrote your survey, or a volunteer may want to expand on a certain answer. Finish surveys with questions like “Is there anything else you would like to share?” to glean as much data as possible.

Examples of Volunteer Survey Questions

Jumpstart your volunteer survey with a few sample questions:

Volunteer Satisfaction Survey Questions

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your volunteer experience?
• What motivates you to volunteer (check all that apply): making a positive impact, supporting a cause I believe in, socializing with other volunteers, improving skills, getting involved in my local community, other (please specify)
• Yes/No: Are you planning on volunteering with us again?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend volunteering with us?
• Did you strengthen any skills through volunteering (select all that apply): communication, leadership, collaboration, organization, other (please specify)
• What do you enjoy most about volunteering with us?
• How could the volunteer experience be improved?

Volunteer Engagement Survey Questions

• How many hours did you volunteer this month: 0, 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 40+
• Do you volunteer with any other organizations? If so, which organizations?
• Which of our programs do you volunteer with the most?
• True/False: I always understand my tasks and responsibilities when I volunteer.
• Which volunteer position(s) have you enjoyed the most?
• Yes/No: Do you feel like your volunteering is making an impact?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how valued do you feel by our organization?
• Which types of recognition do you enjoy the most (select all that apply): social media shoutouts, verbal recognition, awards and certificates, volunteer impact data, project case studies, other (please specify)
• Yes/No: Do you feel like you received enough volunteer training?
• Do you have any ideas for expanding volunteer impact?
• Do you have any other skills that you want to contribute to the organization?

Volunteer Recruitment and Placement Survey Questions

• How did you hear about our organization: website, social media, ad, work, school, friend, other (please specify)
• How often would you like to receive information about volunteering opportunities: any time, weekly, monthly, every few months, never
• Why are you interested in our organization?
• Do you have any special skills you can offer to our volunteer program?
• Which of the following volunteer positions are you most interested in?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy was it to sign up?
• How could the registration process be improved?
• When do you prefer to volunteer (select all the apply): weekday mornings, weekday afternoons, weeknights, weekend mornings, weekend afternoons, weekend nights
• What is your preferred method of communication: phone call, email, text messaging, messaging apps, mail
• Please provide your contact information.

How to Conduct Volunteer Surveys

Once you have written your volunteer survey questions, it’s time to distribute your survey and begin collecting data. Follow these simple steps:

1. Test your survey: Before you send your survey to volunteers, have a colleague test it. They can let you know if the survey is too long, if any questions are unclear, or if you have any grammar, spelling, or factual errors.
2. Narrow your audience: Sometimes, you may want to survey your entire volunteer base; however, some surveys will have more specific audiences. Your results will be less helpful if you’re polling the wrong volunteer segments. Someone who didn’t volunteer that day can’t help with an event satisfaction survey, and long-time volunteers won’t provide the best insights into recruitment.
3. Know how often to survey: Each survey goal demands a specific frequency. Satisfaction surveys should generally be conducted after every event, but engagement surveys, which typically look at macro-level volunteering, can be conducted less regularly, anywhere from every month to once a year.
4. Consider your timing: Send out your surveys when they will be most relevant. For example, satisfaction surveys should be sent out within 24-48 hours after an event, and recruitment surveys should be sent as soon as a new volunteer registers. However, you don’t want to distribute surveys at times when volunteers aren’t likely to engage. 3 am on Monday won’t be your best choice, but 6 pm, when many volunteers will be returning from work and catching up on their emails, could effective. Consider automating communication so that your surveys are always distributed at the right time.
5. Choose a distribution method: Pick a distribution method that works best for your organization and your volunteers. Online survey platforms, like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms, are great choices, but you may also see benefits from printed surveys handed out directly at an event or distributed via mail.
6. Set a deadline: To keep the information you collect relevant, make sure you set a response deadline. 1-2 weeks give your volunteers enough time to respond at their leisure while still ensuring you get feedback when you need it.

How to Increase Volunteer Survey Participation

Your volunteer survey data will be severely limited if you cannot convince your volunteers to participate. Try these best practices for increasing survey participation:

• Communicate the survey’s purpose: Explain your goals to the volunteers so that they understand why you are asking these questions and how their responses will directly improve their own experiences. Make sure that they know this survey is as much for them as it is for you!
• Offer an incentive: Prizes can be powerful motivators! Consider offering small items, like stickers or gift cards, as rewards for completing the survey. You can also enter participants into a raffle for larger prizes.
• Make surveys anonymous: Survey participants are more likely to be honest if they know their responses will not be shared. Make sure to provide an option that allows for anonymous participation.
• Send reminders: With your volunteers’ busy schedules, it is easy for a survey to fall to the wayside. Send a few reminders to increase participation.
• Thank your participants: Don’t forget to thank the volunteers who participate! In addition to incentives, send a short thank you note.

How to Analyze Volunteer Survey Questions

Once your survey is complete, turn those questions into actionable insights with effective analysis.

• Utilize volunteer management software: Volunteer management software provides a central place for data storage, while also offering resources to help you catalog, analyze, and report volunteer data.
• Quantify data: Turn your quantifiable data points (1-10 scales, multiple choice answers, etc.) into easy-to-understand, visual representations like charts and graphs for more effective analysis.
• Look for consistencies: You will never be able to act on every suggestion or completely satisfy every volunteer. However, if an issue keeps recurring, it is worth your attention. These consistencies are especially important in open-ended questions. You can even use AI tools to pull out repeated terms from volunteer responses.
• Share your findings: You will want to share your results with multiple different audiences. Nonprofit leadership, board members, and grantors will likely want formal reports. You can use less formal reporting methods to showcase your volunteer program on websites and social media; simply grab the most interesting case studies, quotes, and statistics from your volunteer survey data. However, the most important audience for your results is your volunteers! Let them know what you found out. Celebrate the positives, and explain how you will address the negatives.
• Take action: Once your survey identifies areas for improvement, start implementing changes. Consider your volunteers’ suggestions carefully and make plans to optimize your program.

Improve Your Volunteer Program with VolunteerHub

VolunteerHub is your number one software solution for improving volunteer satisfaction, engagement, and impact. Throughout over 20 years of experience, we have helped thousands of organizations manage billions of volunteer hours, so we know how to take your volunteer program to the next level.

Our intuitive platform empowers volunteers to take control of their own experience—from recruitment and registration to scheduling and hour tracking—making them truly feel like partners in your mission! On the organizational side, VolunteerHub frees up critical time, energy, and resources through data tracking, automated communication, and opportunity management features.