Free Online Survey Tools For Nonprofits

Nonprofits come in many shapes and sizes, but what they all have in common is a need to get results from their investments. Are you looking for a way to capture the opinions of your constituents without spending a lot of money? Do you want to learn more about online survey tools, or maybe surveymonkey nonprofit pricing?

You’re ready to create and implement an online survey, and you’ve heard about SurveyMonkey and its free tools. But do you know what you can do with these tools? Or how it helps nonprofit organizations? Aside from SurveyMonkey, we also mentioned other free online survey software. You can check them out as well as the rest of the comparison table below.

Google Forms – The Survey Tool with the Most Value

Google Forms is part of the G Suite platform. While this tool is technically a form builder, you can also use it to create surveys, polls, questionnaires, and quizzes.

On Google Forms, you can build surveys with more than ten types of questions (from multiple choice to linear scale to file upload), embed images or YouTube videos, and see your survey results in real-time. You can also have responses automatically exported to Google Sheets, where you can analyze and evaluate them.

However, since Google Forms is a 100% free tool, it is also quite limited. For instance, it doesn’t offer very many templates or pre-written survey questions. Most businesses will probably be better off with a different tool that offers better features.

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Features

  • Build unlimited surveys with unlimited questions and receive unlimited responses
  • Upload your logo, and Google will pick a matching color palette – or choose from a list of curated themes
  • Create surveys that can be easily answered on desktop and mobile devices
  • Share your surveys via email, with a survey link, through embedded HTML, or on social media – wherever your audience is
Survey response limitsUnlimited
Data exportTo Google Sheets or CSV file
Free supportCheck out Google Drive Help and the Help Community
When to upgradeNever! Google Forms is free, forever

SurveyMonkey – Perfect for Survey Beginners

SurveyMonkey is one of the most popular free online survey tools. It’s also very beginner-friendly. When building a new survey, you can start from scratch or have SurveyMonkey build it for you. If you choose the latter option, SurveyMonkey pulls together suggested questions based on your survey audience and purpose.

You can also access the Question Bank, which is SurveyMonkey’s database of hundreds of pre-written survey questions organized by question intent – including everything from fundraiser feedback to customer satisfaction. The Question Bank also recommends any of SurveyMonkey’s dozens of pre-designed templates based on the questions you choose.

SurveyMonkey’s free Basic plan is pretty limited: you can only ask up to ten questions (out of 13 question types) and receive 100 responses per survey. Moreover, to customize your survey, add your branding, or export your survey results, you’ll have to upgrade to the Standard plan. However, SurveyMonkey does offer discounts for teams of three or more.

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Pro Tip: If you don’t have a website for your nonprofit yet, Survey Monkey is a great choice since it has integrations with most of the best website builders for nonprofits. This can make implementing the surveys you create into your website easier than ever.

Features

  • Receive 24/7 email support, even with the free Basic plan
  • Upload your logo, customize your layout, or choose from SurveyMonkey’s library of survey themes
  • Create your survey with 58 supported languages
  • Password-protect any survey you’d like to keep private
Survey response limits100 per survey
Data exportOnly with paid plans
Free supportAccess 24/7 email support or the SurveyMonkey Help Center
When to upgradeIf you need more than ten questions and/or 100 responses per survey, want to completely customize your survey, or need to export your survey results

Typeform – The Prettiest Survey Platform

With a motto that says “Asking questions should be easy, human, and beautiful,” Typeform leads this bunch with the most intuitive, design-centric survey builder on this list.

On  Typeform, surveys are called, well, typeforms. The free Basic plan allows up to 100 responses per month and ten questions per typeform – not much compared to some of the other options in this article. You can create typeforms with a handful of basic question types, embed your surveys on your website, and integrate Typeform with dozens of other tools you may use (like Google Sheets or Mailchimp).

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When you create a new typeform, you can either start from scratch or choose from Typeform’s gallery of templates, which are organized by format (such as survey, poll, or quiz). The designs are great, but you really have to work for them. Compared to some of the other options on this list – especially Google Forms or SurveyMonkey – Typeform’s survey builder can be quite difficult to use. Adding and designing new questions can feel like a pretty in-depth process.

Features

  • Receive an email when a respondent completes your survey
  • Create custom themes to apply to all questions and surveys
  • Apply your typeform answers to other questions with the Recall feature
  • Integrate your typeform data with more than 500 Zapier applications (and HubSpot)
Survey response limits100 per month
Data exportTo Google Sheets or a Zapier application
Free supportUse the Typeform Help Center or reach out with questions
When to upgradeIf you need more than ten questions per survey or 100 responses per month, to incorporate question logic jumps, or create a custom Thank You screen

SurveyPlanet – For the High-Volume Surveys

SurveyPlanet is a simple, straightforward survey builder. It’s a highly-regarded tool due to the extensive list of features you can access – even with just its Free plan.

With SurveyPlanet, you can build unlimited surveys that have unlimited questions and gather unlimited responses. You can also add opening and closing messages to better engage your survey recipients. You’ll also get access to more than 90 pre-created surveys and a library of pre-written questions that you can easily add to in.

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SurveyPlanet’s survey builder is super easy to navigate but it does have some drawbacks. For starters, the surveys aren’t as easy to create as they are on Google Forms and they aren’t as pretty to look at as the ones on Typeform. But this tool does the trick – and you get to survey as many people as you want.

Features

  • Create surveys in more than 20 languages
  • Share surveys via email or on social media – wherever your audience is
  • Embed your surveys on your website or landing pages
  • Access an extensive library of pre-written questions that are organized by survey type
Survey response limitsUnlimited
Data exportOnly with the Pro plan
Free supportUse the SurveyPlanet Documentation Base or send an email
When to upgradeIf you’d like to export your survey results, add custom formatting to your survey, or incorporate question branching

Crowdsignal – Best for Simple Polls and Surveys

Crowdsignal is an excellent tool for simple, straightforward surveys and polls. Crowdsignal was created by the people at WordPress, so you have to have a WordPress account to login and use it.

Crowdsignal’s drag-and-drop survey builder is incredibly intuitive and easy to navigate. Add and customize more than a dozen types of questions and incorporate question branching for a more engaging survey experience. From the same screen, you can also change the survey style, alter the survey settings (like change the URL), and see your sharing options. Survey results live in the survey builder, so you can access them whenever (although you’ll need to upgrade to export).

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Where Crowdsignal really pulls ahead is with its no-nonsense polls and ratings. If you’re looking to give your audience a one-question survey or use a simple rating scale to get feedback on a blog post or video, Crowdsignal is for you. The tool provides lots of ways to customize both ratings and polls so you can gather the most accurate feedback from your audience.

Features

  • Run unlimited polls and surveys with the Free plan
  • Access a separate Crowdsignal iOS app to survey your customers or donors on-the-go
  • Share your survey using eight different digital methods (including popup slider, banner, and QR code)
  • Customize your survey settings by changing the URL, adding a progress bar, or changing the language on embedded surveys
Survey response limitsUnlimited
Data exportOnly with the Pro plan
Free supportAccess the Crowdsignal Knowledge Base and online support
When to upgradeIf you want advanced reporting, to export responses and reports, or customize the design of your surveys (using CSS)

Conclusion

As nonprofit organizations know, surveys are an essential part of gathering and comparing information and data. The importance of surveys in today’s world is further underscored by the fact that people overwhelmingly prefer to give their opinions online.

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