Guide: Planning Your First Parent Survey of the Year

Updated September 2024

Summary

• The first parent survey of the year should focus on gathering insights about fundraising priorities, volunteer interest, and feedback on past PTA performance.
• Send the survey during the first week of school, with a clear deadline to encourage timely responses.
• Use open-ended questions and ranking options for better insights, and keep the survey short with 3–5 essential questions.
• Online surveys are convenient and easy to track, but paper surveys can be a good backup option for parents with technology limitations.
• Compile and share results with key school stakeholders to inform your future fundraising plans.

Your school group’s first parent survey of the year is a chance to learn about your school community’s needs and priorities so that you can plan to fundraise more effectively. But that means you’ll need to create a survey that helps you collect the right information and send it out to the right people. We’re here to help.

Here is a guide on what to consider while making your survey, when is the best time to deliver it, and how you can use that info for future years. Let’s go!

Writing the Survey Questions 

Identify the Purpose

Decide what objective you’re trying to achieve and what answers you’re trying to gather from surveying your parents. Most parent surveys will collect information on the following:

• Fundraising priorities for the coming year
• Potential interest in volunteer positions
• Feelings about the PTA’s past performance and ways it can be improved

This feedback can be anonymous or you can ask parents to respond with their name and other information. Anonymity can inspire people to be more honest with their feedback, but you’ll probably want to collect some personal information if you’re trying to build a volunteer list.

Related: 5 Awesome Email Templates to Connect with Volunteers For Your Next School Fundraiser

Timing Your Survey

It’s best to send out the first parent survey of the year before the back-to-school season gets too hectic. We recommend sending this survey out in the first week of school.

It also helps to let parents know when you expect the survey to be returned. Giving people a deadline will help motivate them to complete the survey, and will also keep you from waiting around indefinitely in hopes of getting a few more responses.

Use Open-Ended Questions

Ask a few open-ended questions on the survey to get more useful information from your survey takers.

• Instead of a question like “Did you enjoy ____ event? Circle Yes or No” try, “What was your favorite part of _____ event?”.

• If you must ask a yes or no question, add “Why or why not?” to give them an opportunity to expound on their thoughts.
• For questions about fundraising priorities, consider having parents rank different choices. This will provide you with more useful data than simply having them write out a top choice of fundraising project.

Keep the Survey Short and Sweet

The longer a survey takes, the less likely it is to be completed and returned.

A best practice is to think of 3-5 questions to include on the survey with 3 maximum as open-ended questions. Only ask the most pressing questions and combine questions if you can.

As an example, you can take the two-part questions “Did you attend the event?” and “What did you think of it?”, and combine them into a single question by asking “If you attended the event, what did you like and what would you change to make it better for next year?”

Sending Out Your Survey

There are a few ways that parents can fill out their surveys and return them to your school group:

Use an Online Survey

This is the most efficient and convenient way for most parents and school groups. Sending a survey out electronically has the following advantages:

• Gives parents an easy way to fill out and return the survey without leaving home
• Lets you track how many responses you’ve received
• Ensures that all survey data is collected in the same place and easy to analyze

Just make sure you issue a reminder or two if you’re using this method so parents don’t procrastinate or let the survey go to their spam folder. FutureFund has features that can help:

• FutureFund’s integrated newsletter tools
• FutureFund’s parent/volunteer directory

Hand Out Paper Surveys

Your school group can always give parents a paper copy of the survey to either fill out and hand back. Consider providing parents with a space so they can sit and fill them out on the spot or take them home to fill out and return once they’re finished.

Processing the Feedback

Prepare for Different Opinions

Asking people what they really think is always a bit of a crapshoot: you never know what you’re going to get. Not all feedback will be constructive, and some requests may not serve the broader needs of the school community.

That’s why it’s important to plan your first fundraisers for the new school year carefully and make sure they’re aligned with what students and their families really need. Asking yourself some key questions at the front end can help ensure that a bit of outlying feedback doesn’t cause you to lose focus:

Related: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Planning Your Next Fundraising Event

Meet with Your School Group

Once your survey results are in, you’ll want to compile and share them with anyone who can benefit from the feedback. This includes:

• The PTA or PTO board
• The school board
• School administrators
• Other key members of the community

Sharing the results of the survey with everyone will make everyone feel like their voice is being heard and promote transparency within your school group. Then you can start planning to run your next fundraiser.

Better Surveys Mean More Efficient Fundraising Projects

The more information you can collect at the start of the school year, the easier it is to focus your fundraising efforts and achieve goals that align with your community’s needs. Use the tips above to create and send a survey that helps your school group make meaningful progress.

And remember: FutureFund can help by making it easier to distribute your survey and collect the responses! Get started for free here and try it for yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions about Using FutureFund for Surveys

How does FutureFund’s messaging system work for surveys?

FutureFund has a built-in messaging system that makes it easy to communicate with parents and other community members. You can use this to:

• Send messages with links to online forms
• Send reminder messages to parents encouraging them to complete the survey
• Thank parents who complete the survey once you’ve collected the results

You can also create custom audience filters, use templates to send messages more efficiently, and set up custom sender profiles to collect responses.

How do I collect volunteer information with FutureFund?

FutureFund’s volunteer module actually lets you collect volunteer information from each person who signs up! During registration, they’ll select from a list of potential volunteer positions so that you can see what they’re interested in immediately. They can edit their responses later via the Member site, and you can edit the available positions at any time.

How does FutureFund keep sensitive volunteer info secure?

FutureFund is built to comply with all major privacy and security regulations in the United States. Any data parents share using our platform is safeguarded to keep them safe and keep your school group in compliance.