An annual membership survey is one of the most important steps your co-op can take to help your staff and leadership team better understand your members. In addition, the results can help inform planning for future years.

And, when some questions are consistent from year to year, you may be able to spot trends over time and see a trajectory or pattern that otherwise would not be evident. A best practice is to use the same questions year-over-year for most of the survey, supplementing with questions related to specific projects you are pursuing that year. Check out more survey best practices.

Market your survey (and send reminders!) via email, in your newsletter, on your website and in any other digital channels you use to directly engage your members.

Additional tip: If you want to dig into what your young adult members really think about your co-op, build a survey just for them. Tailor questions based on what you want to learn from them and use email to target survey marketing just to members in the 25-45 year age group.

Sharing Your Results

Don’t be shy about sharing key findings from your survey results with your members—in your e-newsletter, at your annual meeting or through other means.

Let people know how the results of the survey will impact co-op programs in the future. If your satisfaction numbers are good, thank your members for the positive feedback and reinforce the ways you’re working for them. If they aren’t so good, acknowledge your results and talk about how you’re working to improve.

Download examples of co-op annual member surveys (PDF).