Five ways to measure community engagement

You cannot improve what you cannot see. There are five practical ways to see how engaged your community is. Each has its own strengths and blind spots, and they work best in combination.

1. Mine the data you already have

You already hold a lot of information about your membership: demographics, event attendance, donations, membership payments. The question is whether you are using it. You can often pull valuable insights from it quite quickly.

Some examples:

• Early warning. Which households attended regularly last year but have barely appeared this year?
• Where people drop off. Do families stop coming when the children reach a certain age, or after their first year as members?
• Who gives, and how often. The frequency of donations tells you more than the amount, as the first article in this series explained.
• Who does what. Which members appear on the rota, at events, or at the AGM, and which have never been asked?

Most of the measures in our scoring model (membership, donations, services, events, children at events, the AGM and time given) can be read straight from records like these. If you'd rather not do the digging yourself, this is something we can do for you.

Pros: the data is already there, so it is cheap and quick.

Cons: it says nothing about people's opinions or values. You don't have what you don't have, and records cannot tell you why someone stopped coming, or how well your values match their own.

2. Frequent pulse surveys

A pulse survey is a handful of multiple-choice questions that takes less than three minutes. You send it often, perhaps monthly or quarterly, and you ask broadly the same questions each time.

Some examples of questions:

• "How welcome did you feel at shul this month?" (1 to 5)
• "Did you speak to someone new?" (yes or no)
• "The values this community stands for match my own." (1 to 5)
• "How likely are you to invite a friend to something here?" (1 to 5)

You can send the link by WhatsApp, or put a QR code on the screens so that people can answer in the lobby.

Pros: it shows trends. One answer means little, but a score that moves from 4.1 to 3.6 over three months tells you something has changed.

Cons: people get bored of them, so response rates fall. You need to explain constantly why the survey matters and what you do with the answers.

3. Interviews

Interviews are more anecdotal than surveys, but in many ways they produce richer information. They can be done by phone, in fifteen to twenty minutes. In all but the smallest communities you will have to interview a sample.

Some examples of questions:

• "What first brought you here, and what keeps you coming?"
• "If the shul closed tomorrow, what would you miss?"
• "Is there anything you'd like to do here that nobody has asked you to do?"
• "What would you tell a friend who was thinking of joining?"

Choose your sample deliberately. Include some regulars, some people who have drifted away, and some newer members. If you only talk to the people who already like you, you will learn very little.

Pros: depth. You hear the reasons behind the numbers, in people's own words.

Cons: it takes time, and it is hard to compare across people. Some will tell you what they think you want to hear, so it helps if the interviewer is someone other than the rabbi or the chair.

4. Yearly or twice-yearly surveys

A longer survey, perhaps ten to fifteen minutes, sent once or twice a year. It has room for the questions a pulse survey can't carry: how people take part, what they would like to do more of, and how well the community's values match their own.

Some examples of questions:

• The eight measures from our scoring model, asked as self-assessment, such as "I consistently offer and drive forward creative ideas that help the community move forward."
• "What stops you coming more often?" (with options, and a free-text box)
• "Which of these could you see yourself helping with?" (a menu of roles)
• "What is the one thing we should start, and the one thing we should stop?"

A prize draw or similar incentive can help the response rate.

Pros: it can be incentivised, and it is deep enough to capture values and aspirations.

Cons: it is less frequent than a pulse survey, so you learn about problems late. Decide up front whether answers are anonymous: anonymity gets you more honest answers, but you then cannot link them to an individual's engagement score.

5. Post-event follow-ups

After an event, contact the people who came while it is still fresh. A WhatsApp message the next morning with two or three questions is enough.

Some examples:

• "How was last night's event?" (1 to 5)
• "Would you come again?"
• "Did you bring anyone, and would you invite someone next time?"
• "What one thing would have made it better?"

Pros: it gives you a specific anchor to start the conversation. People remember the event, so their answers are concrete.

Cons: selection bias. You only hear from the people who came, and so miss everyone the event didn't attract. Different events also raise different questions, so a single form rarely fits. A sensible compromise is to keep two core questions the same for every event, so that you can compare them, and to add one question specific to each event.

Putting them together

Combinations of these methods work best, because each covers the others' blind spots. Your records tell you what is happening, surveys tell you how much and in which direction, and interviews tell you why.

Two habits matter more than any individual method.

1. Close the feedback loop. A feedback loop is always necessary. Tell members what you heard and what you changed in response. If people never see results, they stop answering, and they conclude that the community isn't listening.
2. Be consistent. You can tweak your approach to see what works, but keep strong levels of consistency in the questions, timing and method. Otherwise you cannot tell whether engagement changed or you simply asked differently. Change one thing at a time.

In short

Start with the data you already hold, add one survey and a few conversations, and then keep asking in the same way. A measure that you repeat consistently, and act on visibly, will tell you more than a perfect one that you use once.