SURVEY SERVICES
Thank you for your interest in working with CivicPulse! A core part of CivicPulse’s mission is to expand opportunities for top-quality research focused on local and state governance.
CivicPulse is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that runs surveys of public officials in the United States. Our mission is to generate insights about the public sector through better access to reliable data and research. We work with researchers and organizations across an array of academic disciplines and professional domains.
CivicPulse offers the ability to conduct surveys of elected policymakers, top appointed executives, and key department heads in local government. We also offer surveys of civil service staff across a range of departments in local and state government, as well as the federal government on a case-by-case basis.
Options
Respondent Types
At CivicPulse, we define a “respondent type” by the combination of level of government, role, and department.
Survey options center on two factors: (a) the level of scarcity of the sampling frame and (b) the expected survey length.
Researchers may propose customizations of the sampling frame. For example, some researchers in the past have requested that respondents only represent local governments above a certain population size, or in a particular region of the country. Based on the difficulty of achieving the requested customization, CivicPulse will assess feasibility and, if feasible, provide a maximum sample size and a pricing quote.
Restricted Access Dataset
CivicPulse also offers the service of a Restricted Access Dataset (RAD) for researchers to have access to identifiable government and jurisdictional information (e.g., government name, Census ID, and additional community characteristics), subject to a data sharing agreement that prohibits the researcher from publicly posting the RAD or any information that could identify a specific department or government publicly.
How To Apply
Because of the specialized challenges associated with conducting an effective survey with public officials, we encourage interested researchers to communicate with us early on in their project development process. You can do so by writing to our Director of Research, Daniel Farmer, at danielfarmer@civicpulse.org. Inquiries about projects in any stage of development are welcome.
Get started with your application by downloading these documents:
Custom Surveys
Custom surveys are accepted and fielded on a rolling basis. A custom survey typically takes 2 to 4 months from the initial inquiry to data delivery, though the amount of time varies by project.
A common timeline for a custom survey is as follows:
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Researcher reaches out to CivicPulse with preliminary idea.
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Researcher and CivicPulse iterate to identify optimal sampling strategy and questionnaire design for research project.
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Researcher submits for IRB once questionnaire is decided.
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Researcher initiates payment.
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CivicPulse programs survey and shares link with researcher for review.
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CivicPulse completes pilot data collection.
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CivicPulse follows up with researchers if changes are needed.
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CivicPulse completes full data collection.
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CivicPulse completes data anonymization and delivery to researcher.
2024 Omnibus Survey
CivicPulse is now accepting applications for our 2024 U.S. National Omnibus Surveys of Local and State Government. Because CivicPulse subsidizes these surveys as part of its 501(c)(3) mission, this opportunity is only open to graduate students who have not yet worked with CivicPulse.
This year, researchers may choose between either of two respondent types (for either respondent type, the sample size will be fixed to 400 responses):
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U.S. local government policymakers
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U.S. local and state government civil service staff
Interested researchers should also choose between one of the following timing/pricing options:
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a 2-minute module for $5000 (descriptive questions only, no experiments);
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a 4-minute module for $7500 (experiments allowed but subject to review)
Please note that, for omnibus surveys, respondent demographics are included as part of the survey and will not count against these times. The list of included demographics can be found in the questionnaire guidelines, and a time estimation template is available here.
This year, we will be focusing the omnibus surveys on three themes. Each proposed module should relate to one of the following:
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Local–state intergovernmental relations: Pursue research questions related to the interplay between state and local governments.
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Performance management systems: Consider questions of how government performance (be it service provision, capital investments, or internal operations) are evaluated and managed.
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Workforce policies, practices, and challenges: Investigate topics around recruitment and retention of the local and state public sector workforce.
Take this opportunity to contribute to research in these critical areas of governance! To apply, please send an email to our research director, Daniel Farmer, at danielfarmer@civicpulse.org by February 2, 2024. Please include the following information:
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Your preferred respondent type
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Your preference for the 2 or 4-minute survey option
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Your chosen research theme
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Attached preliminary questionnaire (.docx) and time estimation (.xlsx)
Please be sure to review our questionnaire guidelines as you draft your proposal. If you have questions prior to the deadline, do not hesitate to reach out.
Below is an overview of the subsequent process.
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Feb 2 – March 1.
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CivicPulse reviews researchers’ proposals.
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March 1 - March 29.
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CivicPulse goes back-and-forth with researchers to revise questionnaires as needed and agree on time estimation.
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Researchers submit for IRB once questionnaire decided.
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Researchers initiate payment once time estimation decided.
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March 29 – April 15.
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CivicPulse programs survey and shares test link for review with all researchers.
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April 15 – April 30.
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Pilot data collection.
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CivicPulse follows up with researchers as needed in case changes are needed to reduce attrition.
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April 15 – June 14.
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Full data collection.
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June 14 – July 1.
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Data anonymization and delivery (with reference guide) to researchers.
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Developing Your Questionnaire
Unlike most public opinion surveys—where respondents are incentivized to complete the survey no matter how it is designed—our surveys rely on public officials who voluntarily answer questions because they believe it is serving the public good. As such, content on CivicPulse surveys must be engaging and easy to comprehend. Our team will work with you to minimize survey drop-off.
Here we offer four general considerations to keep in mind before moving on to more specific guidelines for developing your questionnaire.
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First, please make sure to use plain, clear English (rather than Academic or Industry English!).
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Second, CivicPulse respondents represent a wide range of communities, including many small, more rural communities. Sometimes researchers may not be aware of this and make their content too “big city” centric, leading some respondents to feel the survey is not for them and drop off.
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Third, keep in mind that a significant portion of our respondents’ complete surveys on their mobile phones. Please make sure to keep in mind how the content will display on mobile.
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Fourth and finally, some types of content are explicitly prohibited. Specifically, we ask researchers to avoid the following:
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Overly complex tasks or questions
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Deception or any misleading language (explicit hypotheticals are acceptable)
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Content designed to change behavior
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For more detailed guidelines, please download the complete survey application guidelines.
Additional Information
Funding and Payment
We do not require proof of funding to apply for either a custom survey or a module on the omnibus survey. Once your application is accepted and your survey questionnaire is finalized, we will ask you to sign a Scope of Work.
Once you have reviewed the Scope of Work and signed it, we will send it back to you countersigned along with an invoice with instructions for payment. Please note that payment must be made prior to survey launch. If you anticipate any issues with funding or the payment timeline, please let us know ASAP. In particular, you may be required to establish CivicPulse as a vendor at your university or organization. If that requires additional paperwork on our end, let us know.
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
CivicPulse is a 501c(3) outside the purview of any particular university’s IRB jurisdiction. As such, it is your own responsibility to get the questionnaire approved by your institution’s IRB, if relevant. The questionnaire template provides our standard survey introduction language at the top of the document.
It is significantly shorter than the typical “consent language” used for many public opinion surveys. We strive to maintain a short survey introduction to reduce survey attrition, given that our survey respondents are government officials volunteering their very limited time. However, if modifications are required, please let us know and we will work closely with you to ensure the survey introduction complies with both CivicPulse’s operational requirements and your IRB’s research ethics guidelines.
Post-survey research brief
As a mission-driven nonprofit, we aim to both facilitate frontier research while also generating useful insights for the community that we are surveying. To that end, we are committed to following up within three months of closing the survey to the government community with some brief insights from each survey we conduct. We typically do this by writing up a short research brief based on 2-3 items from your survey (pre-approved by you) that might be interesting to the local government community while also ensuring you don’t have to worry about being “scooped.” Rest assured: this does not mean more work for you. We write the research briefs ourselves and run them by you.