Here it is, the first-ever methodologically-rigorous, random sample survey of civic leadership programs. Click here for the research plan, the memorandum including overall results and the crosstabs.
Thank you to the 120 senior executives who participated in this survey. In appreciation, they received the results a few weeks ago.
My hope is, for those who are trying to move your CLP forward, that this survey demonstrate the utility of using surveys to guide organizations. While this survey covers a sliver of potential for CLPs, it reveals that opinion research – surveys – can help individual CLPs be more successful and drive more impact in their community. The average CLP is more than 25 years old and has more than 750 alumni or graduates of their core program. At this size, the CLPs are too large to not actively pursue strategies to increase their impact in the communities.
Survey of Civic Leadership Programs : Alumni Activities in Leadership Organziations
In this short survey, we focus largely on alumni activities in CLPs, and break them down by into six categories:
- Management of Alumni Relations: Some broad organizational structure for engaging alumni;
- Role in CLP Management: Ways in which alumni may be involved in managing the CLPs;
- Staffing of Alumni Relations: Investment in staff devoted to alumni relations;
- Role in Fundraising and Outreach: Broad roles in which alumni are used for development and recruitment;
- Programming Offerings: General ways programs are designed for alumni; and,
- Communications: Ways in which the CLP communicates with alumni.
- We also created an index to categorize the activities of CLPs into low, medium and high performing, and related the categories to whether CLPs are set up to take on challenging community topics.
So, please review the materials and see how my research is planned, executed and analyzed. Enjoy!
