National Citizen Survey

National Citizen Survey

The first and last measure of good government is citizen satisfaction.

 

What is The National Citizen Survey™?

Developed by ICMA and National Research Center, Inc., The National Citizen Survey™ (The NCS) is a low-cost citizen survey service for local governments. Tested, flexible, affordable, and efficient, The NCS lets you survey citizen opinion for

  • Program Planning
  • Budgeting
  • Goal Setting
  • Performance Measurement

Staff can use the results of The NCS to improve service delivery. Elected officials can use the results to set spending priorities. The manager can use the results to measure progress and chart future steps.

You select from a set of standard questions to assess citizen opinion about basic services and community life. Additional customized questions let you tailor the survey to your unique needs. A new feature of The NCS' basic service is the Key Driver Analysis, which helps you identify those attributes most likely to increase resident opinion of your local government's performance.

An additional benefit to NCS participants who also participate in the ICMA Center for Performance Measurement (CPM), is that The NCS was designed to coordinate with the CPM data collection. Thus, local governments can submit citizen satisfaction data obtained through The NCS survey instrument to CPM along with their other performance measurement data.

The NCS Basic Service offered by ICMA and NRC includes:

• Customized survey form plus up to three optional questions

• Customized cover letter

• Three mailings to 1,200 randomly selected households, which include the pre-survey postcard and two mailings of the survey instrument

• A margin of error (95 percent confidence interval) of no more than +/- 5 percentage points around any percent

• Data input and cleaning

• Data weighted to reflect population norms

• Three reports: executive summary, statistical analysis of survey results, optional comparison with national norms (all in electronic format)

• NEW! Key Driver Analysis

• Certificate of participation

• Technical assistance by phone and e-mail

• Entry to win top honors for Voice of the People Awards (http://www.n-r-c.com/services/nationalcitizensurvey.html)

• Access to Best Practices of winners of The Voice of The People Awards for Excellence and Transformation

Additional Options:

• Larger mailings

• Customized norms by region, population, or other factors

• Spanish-language version of survey

• Addition of open-ended question

• Comparisons to results from surveys you’ve conducted in the past

• Demographic and geographic cross-tabulation

• Phone survey

• Presentation of results to elected officials

The National Citizen SurveyTM— Options and Prices Matrix

The price for The NCS Basic Service is $9,900. Additional options are available for the following additional fees:

Additional Option

Fee

Description

Basic service

$9,900

The basic turn-key process that covers all bases of the mailed survey administration: creating the survey and survey documents, randomly selected a sample or address list of 1,200 unique addresses, printing, mailing, data entry and analysis and creating both a report of results and a report of normative comparisons (with US jurisdictions).

Demographic crosstabs report

$900

Crosstabs of questions 1-15 by 4 demographic variables on survey to be provided under separate cover from report.

Geographic crosstabs reports

$1,100

Crosstabs of questions 1-15 by geographic variable to be provided under separate cover from report.

Custom norms

$1,100

Through worksheet options, jurisdiction selects criteria for set of custom norms usually by population size OR region of the country. Custom norms will be provided alongside national norms in report tables. Graphs will include either custom or national norms but not both.

Comparison to prior NCS results

 $0

Comparisons in report of results of prior NCS results.

Comparison to prior (non-NCS) results

$1,750

Tables include comparisons to previous years' service evaluation ratings in jurisdiction – up to three previous years.

Expanded mailing

$7,000

Survey is mailed to 3,000 residents instead of 1,200.

Spanish

$1,450

Includes Spanish paragraph on cover letters asking those who wish to complete the survey in Spanish to contact the jurisdiction and request Spanish copy of survey. Jurisdiction will be mailed envelopes – outbound and return – and surveys to mail out to those individuals

One open-ended question

$1,500

Includes one open-ended question added to survey. Responses will be categorized and reported in a table under separate cover, accompanied by a complete list of verbatim responses.
Phone data collection $6,000 400 completed interviews
On-site presentation $2,800

Creation of PowerPoint presentation and on-site presentation of materials by National Research Center, Inc. staff person

* Please note that prices are subject to change.

The NCS begins a new class each month. The entire survey from enrollment to final report, takes 18 weeks to complete. For a current schedule, click here.

Reliability of the Survey: Credible, Comparable Results

Since The NCS was introduced in 2001, local governments in over 41 states have participated. The survey process is being continually refined to ensure that your local government receives the best information possible per dollar spent on your citizen survey. Your results can be compared, at your option, with norms based on the results of more than 350 surveys administered throughout the country.

The NCS gives you results with the highest credibility from independent professional survey specialists. You get the satisfaction of personal service, the benefit of comparability with other jurisdictions, and the efficiency of a standardized process.

We are now in more than 40 states and norms are available from over 500 surveys administered throughout the country.

For More Information

For answers to your frequently asked questions (FAQ), click here.

To meet The NCS team, click here.

For more information, a list of praticipants, and to learn how your community can use The National Citizen Survey™, send an e-mail to ncs@icma.org.

Many other materials on the subject of citizen surveying and The National Citizen SurveyTM  are available on this site in the downloads section below:

  • The National Citizen SurveyTM PowerPoint, suitable for presentations to elected officials and other decision makers
  • Why Survey? Some Talking Points
  • NCS Survey Instrument
  • NCS Enrollment Form
  • Sample Report of Results
  • Article: "An Affordable Citizen Survey Now Available for Small Cities" (Betsy Bean) - The Mayor, Mar/April 2002
  • After the Survey: Planning Next Steps
  • Perspectives, a newsletter about survey research for local government managers and elected officials

How to Enroll

Print out and complete the enrollment form (see Downloads section below) and fax it or mail it to: ICMA/NCS, 777 North Capitol St., NE, Ste., 500, Washington, DC 20002-4201.


Downloads
  NCS Brochure (Adobe Acrobat Document, 458 KB)
  NCS 2009 Enrollment Form (Adobe Acrobat Document, 59 KB)
  NCS Participants (Adobe Acrobat Document, 37 KB)
  Survey Instrument-Cities 2009 (Adobe Acrobat Document, 91 KB)
  Survey Instrument-Counties 2009 (Adobe Acrobat Document, 90 KB)
  Sample Report - Town of Needham, MA (Adobe Acrobat Document, 696 KB)
  Sample Report - Dover, DE (Adobe Acrobat Document, 852 KB)
  Demographic Subgroup Comparisons Report (Adobe Acrobat Document, 188 KB)
  NCS Perspectives - Spring 2008 (Adobe Acrobat Document, 1,277 KB)
  NCS Information Guide (Adobe Acrobat Document, 475 KB)
  NCS PowerPoint Presentation (Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation, 1,428 KB)
  Why Survey? Some Talking Points (Microsoft Word Document, 30 KB)
  Article - An Affordable Citizen Survey (Adobe Acrobat Document, 33 KB)
  After the Survey: Planning Next Steps (Adobe Acrobat Document, 69 KB)
  NCS Presentation of Results for Novi, MI 2009 (Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation, 5,546 KB)