Surveys, like other evaluation tools, provide foundations an opportunity to get an honest assessment of their performance. Whether surveying your grantees, staff, board, or other key stakeholders, getting honest and unbiased feedback is imperative. NCNG is a neutral third party that can be the source you need to implement a survey with confidence.

Check out this brief webinar and read below to learn more.

What is a perception survey?

The simple answer is that it is an evaluation tool for eliciting feedback from people in your work universe about your performance. Surveys can be used with foundation staff, boards, community stakeholders, and other partners.

The detailed answer is that it is a carefully crafted instrument containing questions and prompts designed to get information from people you work with regarding a number of issues, including:

• Whether your organization’s mission is meeting community needs;

• Whether your organization’s staff is adequately serving and communicating with your organization’s partners and stakeholders.

• Whether your organization’s mission is clearly communicated;

• Whether your organization’s work output is effective to achieve your organization’s mission and objectives;

• Whether your organization structure adequately supports your organization’s ability to pursue its mission and objectives;

With this specific feedback from your partners and stakeholders you directly engage them in determining how to improve how you plan and implement your work, how your organization is set up to do the work, what informs your strategic planning and decision-making, and ultimately, how you improve your service to your grantee stakeholders.

Why NCNG?

NCNG offers this service because it is often easiest, more effective, and beneficial to have a neutral third party serve as a bridge between the assessor and the one begin assessed. A neutral third party can lend objectivity and promotes a sense of confidentiality that is an important element of evaluation. Increased objectivity and confidentiality increase the likelihood that the feedback elicited from the surveys is completely honest and critical, and that makes the evaluation more meaningful to the foundation. In addition, NCNG understands the foundation universe and is able to analyze survey responses with appropriate perspective and context and provide that feedback to foundations in a way that makes sense to them.

Reporting, analysis, and presentation of the data

After conducting the survey, the next step is analyzing, reporting, and presenting the data. A clear, well-presented report will foster a common understanding of the data, and make the survey data meaningful and accessible to your staff. And in this way, your staff or organization has what it needs to be responsive to its grantees’ and stakeholders' input.

With this service, NCNG will produce a final report containing an executive summary that provides an overview of survey findings, and endnotes containing specific quantitative survey data. In this way, we are able to provide an overview of the report upfront, and as much detailed analysis as possible in the body. See a sample of the report we recently produced for the NC Health and Wellness Trust Fund here.

We'll also provide a slide deck of significant graphics for use with foundation boards, staff, and other stakeholders, and again, it gets back to making the data gained from surveys accessible.

For more information on conducting a perception survey at your foundation, contact us!