Now more than ever, government organizations need to understand the opinions of the communities they serve. Our high-quality surveys and team of public opinion professionals will help your organization limit blind spots, improve your image rating, and tell your story. Our customizable and affordable government survey offerings will generate statistically accurate opinion data that will your leadership team can use to make informed decisions. Moreover, our engaging and inclusive survey data collection methods allow us to generate relevant sample sizes for communities with populations of 7,000 or less. Let our team of professional survey research managers design a survey that fits your organization’s needs.
The Magellan Strategies team has been rewriting the book on the community survey since 2007. Say goodbye to paper mail surveys that your residents throw in the trash. Our community surveys are designed to captivate and engage your residents, including hard-to-reach populations. Our interview methods are more inviting, inclusive, and effective than mail or phone survey methods. In addition, by creating an enjoyable and interactive community survey experience, we ensure your residents will not only participate but genuinely enjoy sharing their thoughts and opinions.
The Magellan School Community Survey is an in-depth, engaging 25-question survey that will generate the opinion data and information your leadership team needs to make informed strategic decisions.
This demographically representative random sample survey will confirm your assumptions of opinions regarding the district and identify positive or negative viewpoints that you were unaware of.
Unfortunately, many survey research firms still use mail surveys as their primary method for interviewing residents. This “paper method” is expensive, slow, and prone to keypunching and non-response bias errors. In addition, mail surveys do not provide a large percentage of residents with one or more opportunities to participate. We think that is wrong, unacceptable, and typically results in a low-quality, inaccurate community survey.
Our primary method of interviewing respondents is sending MMS Text Survey Invitations. On average, our invitations reach at least 60% of a community’s adult population, inviting them to participate in a community survey. We also send multiple texts, giving residents several opportunities to participate. Another advantage of MMS text survey invitations is the simple fact that people are much more likely to pay attention to a text message from their local government than opening a piece of mail.
Our clients often ask how we prevent respondents or groups of individuals from taking a survey multiple times. Our MMS text survey process generates a unique survey link for each cell phone number in our voter database. Therefore, if someone forwards the link to another person who then completes the survey, we can determine, based on the link, that it has been taken more than once. When this occurs, we retain only one interview for each survey link and discard any duplicate responses. On average, very few links are shared during the community survey collection phase.
Additionally, our survey platform only allows a person to take the survey once per IP address. This helps our team manage the data quality of your community survey.
Our survey platform complies with WCAG 2.0 Level AA, ensuring that the community survey is accessible to respondents with vision and hearing disabilities. These respondents can participate in the survey using assistive technologies like screen readers and braille displays. We are currently managing the 2025 Broomfield Community Survey with this technology and have completed over 3,000 interviews. To access this survey, click HERE.
Our community surveys always incorporate benchmark comparison response data for communities with similar population and demographic characteristics. Upon request, we can also provide comparisons of questions to cities or towns outside of your home state.
We go above and beyond in comparing current community survey data to past surveys. As you know, staff and elected officials need to understand how public opinion trends influence city services and programs to make informed decisions. We ensure that happens.
When it comes to community surveys, we offer a transparent and straightforward pricing structure for our clients.
Our 75-question Total Community Survey is $25,000, and our 30-question Condensed Community Survey is $12,500.
We do not charge additional fees to produce a survey presentation or for our time to present survey results multiple times to staff in a working session or a public forum. Our goal is to provide clarity and simplicity in our pricing approach. Simply put, our clients pay a single fee for their community survey.
Our team has decades of experience managing research projects that accurately measure voter support and opposition levels for a wide range of government funding ballot measures, policies, and initiatives. Since 2007, we have helped government organizations educate and inform voters of the reasons why a funding ballot measure is being considered. Understanding the best path and practices for achieving voter approval takes many years to develop. That is why our team has developed a proven ballot measure survey method that we share with our government clients. Additionally, we can consult your organization regarding different types of tax increases, the hierarchy of government services that voters are willing to pay for, good and bad ballot language, and community engagement best practices. Click on an image below to view an example ballot measure survey presentation.
A ballot measure survey is more than just measuring voter support and opposition for a sales or property tax increase. A ballot measure survey is the most effective method a government organization can use to educate and inform their residents and voters about the reasons why new revenue is needed for core services, capital projects, and other needs.
