Here are some of the best questions for a citizen survey about volunteer opportunities, plus tips to create them. Specific helps you generate your survey in seconds and dive deep with smart, conversational feedback.
Best open-ended questions for citizen survey about volunteer opportunities
Open-ended questions get you beyond simple yes/no—they uncover what truly motivates citizens and reveal nuances in how people view volunteer opportunities. You get stories, not just statistics, which means you can act on real needs and ideas. Use them when you want qualitative insight or inspiration for new community initiatives.
What motivates you personally to volunteer within your community?
Describe a volunteer experience that made a significant impact on you or others.
What types of volunteer opportunities would you like to see more of in your area?
Can you share any barriers or challenges that have prevented you from volunteering?
If you could change one thing about existing volunteer programs, what would it be?
How did you find out about your last volunteer opportunity, and was the process easy?
What skills or talents do you wish you could contribute, if given the right opportunity?
What could local organizers do to better support or recognize volunteers?
How do you balance volunteering with your other commitments?
What kind of training or information would make you feel more prepared to volunteer?
Open-ended questions like these gave rise to new engagement in 2023, with 28.3% of Americans volunteering through formal organizations—a bounce-back in civic involvement as communities recovered from the pandemic. [1]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for citizen survey about volunteer opportunities
Single-select multiple-choice questions are your go-to when you want clear, quantifiable data, or when you want to spark a quick response. They’re great to help citizens get started—sometimes, checking a box is less intimidating than writing a paragraph. From there, you can guide the conversation deeper with follow-ups.
Question: What is your primary reason for volunteering?
To help the community
To gain new skills or experience
To meet new people
To fulfill school or work requirements
Other
Question: How often do you currently volunteer?
Once a week
Once a month
Several times a year
Rarely/Never
Question: Which types of organizations are you most interested in volunteering for?
Environmental causes
Sports or youth activities
Community service (food banks, shelters, etc.)
Arts and culture
Other
When to follow up with "why?" Follow-up "why" questions are essential if an answer could have different interpretations, or when you want to reveal deeper motivation. For example, someone selects “Rarely/Never” for volunteering frequency—asking "Why is that?" can uncover practical barriers or emotional hesitations you can directly address.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add "Other" if you want truly inclusive data—citizens’ experiences are diverse, and “Other” unlocks input you hadn’t predicted. Automated follow-up questions can then ask respondents to describe what “Other” means, helping you uncover insights traditional checklists miss.
It’s worth noting: in several countries, sports organizations are the largest source of volunteers. For example, nearly 290,000 in Ireland volunteered for sports in 2022, but you won’t capture trends like this if you lock your choices too tightly. [3]
NPS questions for citizen survey about volunteer opportunities
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for consumer brands or SaaS—it’s a proven way to measure if citizens would recommend local volunteering programs to their community. This single question distills satisfaction and loyalty in one number, then lets AI unlock the stories behind that score in follow-ups. You can instantly build an NPS survey for volunteer opportunities as a starting template inside Specific.
AI analysis of NPS feedback has driven 15% improvements in NPS scores for organizations—because it helps surface not just the number, but the why behind it. [8]
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are the secret sauce in conversational surveys. We automatically use AI to ask smart, contextual follow-ups—clarifying ambiguous answers, probing for specifics, and surfacing real motivations. This approach, which you can read more about in our automatic follow-up questions feature, creates a truly conversational survey experience.
Let’s see why that matters with a quick example:
Citizen: I volunteered a few times but stopped recently.
AI follow-up: Can you tell me what changed, or what made you stop volunteering?
The first answer alone is vague. The follow-up gets to real insight that helps you act.
How many followups to ask? Generally, 2-3 focused follow-ups are enough. The goal is to go deep, not overwhelm. Our settings let you define when to move on once you’ve got a clear answer.
This makes it a conversational survey: with interactive back-and-forth, the survey feels more like a chat, increasing engagement and honesty with your citizens.
AI response analysis—No matter how much unstructured feedback you get, AI makes it simple. Letting you analyze survey responses easily.
Automated follow-ups are new—but they let you capture insights you’d miss in static forms. Try creating a survey now and see how the conversation unfolds.
How to prompt ChatGPT for great volunteer opportunity survey questions
If you’d rather use GPT models yourself, start with a simple prompt. For basic coverage, try:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for citizen survey about volunteer opportunities.
But as with all AI, results are much better when you provide more context. Instead of the generic prompt, try:
Our city is looking to better understand what prevents citizens from volunteering, and what support they need to get involved. We want questions that uncover motivation, barriers, and preferred causes. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a diverse, age-inclusive group.
Want next-level organization? Use:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, focus by picking the categories that matter for your project and ask:
Generate 10 questions for categories about training and support for volunteers.
This iterative approach turns generic GPT outputs into truly unique, actionable questions for your citizen survey.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys are built for interaction—they feel like a chat, not a cold form. With AI at the controls, each question adapts to the respondent, probes for clarity, and follows up like an expert interviewer. This adaptive, chat-based approach drives far higher engagement. In fact, AI-powered surveys report completion rates of 70-80%, compared to 45-50% for traditional methods—a huge boost for your citizen research. [6]
Manual Surveys | AI-generated, Conversational Surveys |
|---|---|
Static, generic questions | Dynamic, adapts to each response |
Low engagement, 10-50% completion rates | High completion rates (70-90%) [2][6] |
Feedback often vague or incomplete | AI probes and clarifies for rich detail |
Manual response analysis (slow, costly) | Instant AI summaries and data chat [4][7] |
Why use AI for citizen surveys? AI survey builders unlock faster setup, richer data, and smoother analysis. Instead of slogging through confusing spreadsheets, you get actionable insights in real time.
If you want to easily create a conversational AI survey, check out our guide on setting up a citizen survey for volunteer opportunities or use the AI survey generator from scratch. Specific offers a best-in-class experience for both survey creators and respondents—fast, friendly, and deeply insightful.
See this volunteer opportunities survey example now
Get inspired to engage more citizens and uncover what truly motivates them—see how AI-powered, conversational surveys can supercharge your volunteer feedback now.