The VVOC asks: which topics need to be address in 2012 survey

Hello Wood Buffalo Residents, I was fortunate to attend the Social Prosperity Summit yesterday afternoon, out of which I was able to make some great connections and gain further insight into the needs and challenges of our local non-profit organizations.

Today I recieved and email asking for some help from local non-profits. Please take a look at the below corespondence and should you like to fill out the survey disucssed I'm sure that your participation would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to diseminate this information further.

Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations (CCVO) is in the process of designing our fifth survey of Alberta's nonprofits and charities. In the past we have benefited from your organization’s assistance in distributing the survey to your network, and your involvement has helped us get a balanced representation from all subsectors and from all over Alberta.

This series of surveys began during the last recession as a tool for measuring the impact of the economic downturn on Alberta’s nonprofits and charities. Past surveys have reported on a range of organizational issues, including financial health, staffing, and future economic outlook. As the province moves further along into its recovery, we have evolved the surveys to take an annual snapshot of the sector. The 2012 survey will continue to build on the information gathered from previous surveys in an effort to compare data and identify trends, but will also seek to explore new areas such as social enterprise and social finance.

The data gathered has been used by nonprofits and charities and informs the work of government, funders and the media. These surveys remain the only source of Alberta-specific research that documents the ongoing health and experiences of organizations in the nonprofit sector.

I am writing to ask if we can rely on you once again to help maximize participation in the survey by promoting it to your Alberta nonprofit partners. A high response rate will enable us to perform more analysis at the regional level, across subsectors and according to organization size.

We would also appreciate your input into the topics we need to address in the survey. Are there specific topics or questions you feel it would be useful to include in the survey? Due to a tight timeline, we request that responses be sent by January 25, and a representative of CCVO may follow up with you by phone. Please contact Geoff Braun at gbraun@calgarycvo.org or 403-261-6655 ext. 222, or Aditya Banerjee at abanerjee@calgarycvo.org (ext. 228) with your comments. The survey is scheduled to go live on February 15. 

We know there have been many demands on your time over the past year and we appreciate your support.

Below is a link to the last survey results for background: http://www.threesource.ca/documents/May2011/ccvo_economicsurvey.pdf