Best questions for citizen survey about youth programs

Here are some of the best questions for a citizen survey about youth programs, plus tips to help you build thoughtful surveys. You can generate high-quality citizen surveys in seconds with Specific.

Best open-ended questions for a citizen survey about youth programs

Open-ended questions truly invite citizens to share their unique perspectives on youth programs—what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s missing. They’re perfect for situations where you want authentic feedback, context, or new insights. These responses often lead to unexpected directions and a deeper understanding, especially if you follow up with smart questions afterwards.

Here are 10 of the best open-ended questions to consider:

1. What do you see as the biggest benefits of local youth programs for our community?

2. Can you share a positive experience you’ve had with a youth program—either as a participant or as an observer?

3. What challenges or barriers have you or your family faced in accessing youth programs in our area?

4. How could local youth programs be improved to better serve young people?

5. What type of youth programs are currently missing in our community?

6. How do you think youth programs could help address issues faced by young people today?

7. What motivates your family to participate in—or avoid—youth programs?

8. How important do you believe it is for youth programs to focus on life skills, leadership, or community service?

9. What is one thing you wish program organizers better understood about local youth or families?

10. Do you have any concerns about how youth programs are advertised or communicated to families?

Open-ended questions let us see the full context behind participation rates. For example, around 14% of youth engage in community service and 13% participate in service-learning programs, but financial and transportation barriers still keep many from benefiting. [1][2]

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for a citizen survey about youth programs

Single-select multiple-choice questions help us quantify citizen feedback and spot trends quickly. They work well when we need to measure which programs people know about, use, or prefer—or when kicking off a dialog that can be explored in depth through follow-up questions. Sometimes, choosing from options is easier for respondents than composing their own answers.

Question: Which type of youth program do you believe has the greatest impact in your community?

• Youth sports

• Community service/volunteering

• Leadership development

• Academic enrichment/tutoring

• Other

Question: What is the main barrier to participation in youth programs for you or your family?

• Cost

• Lack of information

• Transportation

• Scheduling conflicts

• Other

Question: How likely are you to recommend local youth programs to other families?

• Very likely

• Somewhat likely

• Not likely

• Not sure

When to follow up with "why?" Follow-up questions are powerful when someone selects an option, but you want to dig into their motivations. For example, if a respondent chooses "Cost" as their main barrier, a follow-up like "Why is cost a barrier—are there specific fees or other expenses that make participation difficult?" will spark richer, actionable feedback. Costs are indeed a common concern, with nearly half of respondents nationally reporting financial struggles as a barrier. [3]

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Adding "Other" as a choice ensures citizens can flag issues or ideas we might not have considered. This often surfaces unexpected insights, especially when paired with automated follow-up questions to clarify what “Other” means.

Should you include an NPS question for youth program surveys?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question—“How likely are you to recommend our youth programs to others?”—is a classic way to gauge overall satisfaction and advocacy. NPS works well in youth program surveys because it measures public support and provides a simple metric to track over time. For example, if over 90% of parents believe youth sports teach valuable life skills, an NPS question can help confirm if local families feel the same way locally – or if there’s a gap. [4]

If you want to unlock NPS insights fast, use an industry-standard NPS survey template for citizen feedback on youth programs.

The power of follow-up questions

Great feedback lives in the details, and that’s where follow-up questions shine. Specific’s automated follow-up questions feature uses AI to prompt for more detail, clarify unclear responses, and ask “why?”, just like a smart human interviewer would. This makes the survey feel like a natural conversation, and captures the kind of context you’d otherwise only get by scheduling interviews or endless email chains.

For example, if we stop at a surface-level response, here’s what can happen:

• Citizen: “We just don’t have time for those programs.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell me more about what makes it hard to find time—are there other commitments, or is scheduling the main issue?”

Without that follow-up, we miss if it’s about program hours, competing activities, or something else entirely. AI-driven followups help us get to the root cause quickly.

How many followups to ask? Usually, two or three smart follow-ups are enough. You want to get richer context, but not overwhelm people—balance is key. Specific lets you set maximum follow-ups and also enables skipping ahead once you’ve got the insights you need.

This makes it a conversational survey. Instead of a static form, it feels dynamic, human, and approachable—the conversation naturally adapts to each respondent.

Easy AI analysis. Thanks to Specific’s AI-driven survey response analysis, even lots of detailed text answers are easy to summarize and explore—you can chat with the results, not just review giant spreadsheets.

Automated AI follow-ups are still a new concept—try building your own survey to see how powerful, and natural, the process can feel.

How to prompt ChatGPT (or any GPT) to generate the best citizen survey questions on youth programs

If you want to brainstorm great questions using AI, how you prompt matters. Here’s a simple starting prompt:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for citizen survey about youth programs.

You’ll get much better results if you provide extra context (who you are, goals, your situation). Here’s how you might do it:

I am a city council member collecting community feedback about youth programs, especially reasons for low participation and ideas for new programs. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to understand parents’ and citizens’ viewpoints.

Once you have your question list, try this prompt to organize them:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Now, choose which categories you want to dig into. Then prompt:

Generate 10 questions for categories like “Barriers to participation,” “Program impact,” and “Missing opportunities.”

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys are different from traditional forms—they mimic a real human conversation. Instead of answering a block of static questions, each response shapes the next, enabling deeper insights in less time. This is the heart of the AI survey example approach.

Why use AI for citizen surveys? AI makes surveys faster, easier, and more accurate. With an AI survey builder like Specific, you just describe your goal and the platform generates expert-level questions, adds automated follow-ups, and makes the whole thing conversational. You can even edit the survey by chatting with the AI survey editor. Respondents are more engaged and less overwhelmed, which helps boost completion rates and the quality of what you learn.

For a step-by-step walkthrough, check out our guide to creating citizen surveys about youth programs using AI.

Specific is built to deliver the best-in-class conversational survey experience—making feedback easy for you and inviting for your community.

See this youth programs survey example now

Create your own survey and discover how easily you can gather deep insights with conversational AI, rich follow-ups, and effortless analysis—all in one place. See what better feedback looks like!