As parks and recreation professionals, you play a crucial role in fostering community engagement and enhancing the quality of life for your community members.

Conducting parks and recreation surveys is an effective way for agency professionals like yourselves to truly understand the needs of your community members by gathering valuable feedback and insights. Effective surveys not only help you prioritize impactful strategic decisions, but they also help increase customer satisfaction and engagement - if used correctly, of course!

Below you’ll find some high-level tips for building surveys and a list of 10 survey ideas for parks and recreation agencies, each of which includes:

• The primary goal of the survey
• The audience you should target
• Examples of questions you should ask
• How you can use the survey results to improve your parks and recreation operations

3 Parks and Recreation Survey Tips

Before diving into parks and rec survey ideas for your community members, we’ll cover a few important tips to consider when planning and creating your surveys.

These tips and more are covered in our comprehensive parks and recreation survey guide.

1. Include Qualifying Questions in Your Surveys

When building out your surveys – especially ones that you are sending to broader audiences – always be sure to include qualifying questions that allow you to segment feedback based on different categories. Examples could include questions about things like:

• Age groups
• Gender identity
• Geography
• Parental status
• Etc.

2. Have a Clear Objective in Mind

The most important step in producing and distributing a survey is knowing exactly what outcome you are trying to achieve through your survey efforts. There’s no question that survey’s can be a powerful tool for community engagement and planning, but like anything worthwhile, they require a lot of time and effort. This all starts with effective planning.

3. Prioritize Quantitative Data over Qualitative

Our free parks and rec survey guide covers the differences between these types of data sets in detail – but at a high-level, here are the key differences:

• Quantitative data = pre-set selection of answers
• Qualitative data = open-text answers

5 Parks and Recreation Survey Ideas

1. Programming Preferences Survey

🎯Goal: Determine community interest in various recreational programs and activities to tailor offerings to meet demand.

📢 Audience: General community members

❓ Survey Question Recommendations: 

• Which types of recreational programs would you like to see more of?
  • List options, like:
    • Adult fitness programs
    • Adult art programs
    • Youth after-school programs
    • Seniors wellness programs
    • Etc.

• Which types of recreational programs would you like to see more of?
  • List program types, like:
    • Adult fitness programs
    • Adult art programs
    • Youth after-school programs
    • Seniors wellness programs
    • Etc.
• What’s the primary reason you participate in our recreation programs?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Physical health
    • Social interaction
    • Mental health
    • Skill development
    • Etc.

✅ How to Use This Information: With the information you gather from your survey responses, you can develop and schedule programs based on community interests and availability.

2. Playground and Park Equipment Survey

🎯 Goal: Gather feedback on the condition and usability of playgrounds and park equipment to guide maintenance and improvement efforts.

📢 Audience: Parents and caregivers of children under the age of 13

❓ Survey Question Recommendations: 

• Which local park do you visit most?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Each of your local park locations
    • None (for those who don't use them)

• Have you encountered any maintenance issues or safety concerns with the park’s equipment?
  
  • List options, like:
    • None
    • Cleanliness issues
    • Equipment safety issues
    • Accessibility issues
    • Etc.
• Are there any immediate improvements you’d like to see at this park?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Newer playground equipment
    • More frequent maintenance and cleaning
    • Accessibility improvements
    • Etc.

✅ How to Use This Information: Prioritize repairs, upgrades, and new installations based on feedback to ensure safe and enjoyable play spaces.

3. Technology Adoption Survey

🎯 Goal: Assess community preferences for using technology for parks and recreation operations.

📢 Audience: General community members

❓Survey Question Recommendations: 

• How do you prefer to receive information about park events, programs, and updates?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Mail
    • Email
    • Text message
    • Mobile app notifications

• What’s your preferred method of registering for recreation programs and managing your account?
  
  • List options, like:
    • In-person
    • Over the phone
    • Desktop computer
    • Mobile phone
• How happy are you with our current online registration experience for recreation programs?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Very satisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Etc.
• Would you be interested in using a mobile app to register for recreation programs and managing your account?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Yes
    • Maybe
    • No

✅ How to Use This Information: 

• Make configuration improvements to your recreation management software platform or consider alternative options
• Determine ways you can improve communications to community members
• Understand how best to empower community members cross-generationally

💡TIP: Xplor Recreation's all-in-one recreation management platform is designed to empower your community members by giving them a modern, easy-to-use online experience. The online portal is optimized for all browsers and is 100% mobile responsive. Xplor Recreation also offer's agencies their very own fully-native, custom-branded recreation management mobile app. Allowing agencies to provide best-in-class technology solutions to engage your patrons. 

4. Inclusive and Adaptive Programming Survey

🎯 Goal: Assess the accessibility of recreational programming for individuals with disabilities or special needs.

📢 Audience: Individuals with disabilities, parents/caregivers of children with disabilities

❓Survey Question Recommendations: 

• How satisfied are you with the types of adaptive and inclusive programming we offer?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Very satisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Neither Satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Etc.

• What types of adaptive and inclusive programming are you most interested in?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Fitness programs
    • Skill-development programs
    • Arts and crafts programs
    • Outdoor programs
    • Etc.
• What immediate improvement would you like to see in our adaptive and inclusive recreational program offerings?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Increased variety of programming options
    • More weekend programs
    • More weekday programs
    • Smaller group sizes
    • Etc.

✅ How to Use This Information: Determine what adaptive and inclusive programming opportunities you should prioritize to ensure equal access for all community members.

5. Parks Satisfaction Survey

🎯Goal: Evaluate community satisfaction with existing parks to identify areas for improvement.

📢 Audience: Individuals with disabilities, parents/caregivers of children with disabilities

❓Survey Question Recommendations: 

• How satisfied are you with the overall quality of parks in our community?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Very satisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Neither Satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Etc.

• What’s the main reason you visit our parks?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Playtime for children
    • Socialization
    • Outdoor time
    • Exercise/sports
    • Relaxation
    • Etc.
• What influences you the most when deciding which park to visit?
  
  • List options, like:
    • Scenery
    • Playground equipment
    • Amenities
    • Proximity from my home
    • Etc.

✅ How to Use This Information: Address any identified issues to enhance the overall park experience and increase community satisfaction.

Have survey ideas you want to share with your peers? Let us know at xr_marketing@xplortechnologies.com