March 23, 2011

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NFN Survey Results and Analysis Prepared by Anna B. Sandoval Girón1

This report is part of the formative evaluation prepared for Neighbors for Neighbors, Inc.

Here I provide an analysis of the results of the survey conducted during February 2 – 7, 2011 as

part of the evaluation I was tasked to do for the organization. These results must be viewed as

only one portion of the evaluation and within the context of the goals that NFN has as a whole.

The survey sought to gather information about current members of the NFN network in the

Boston area. We sought to identify strengths and weakness of the current network, the issues or

current community problems that users are interested in addressing, and demographic data of

respondents.

The NFN network is comprised of nine neighborhood networks in the City of Boston

with 3380 individual subscribers to the network. In order to recruit participants to the survey an

invitation for participation was sent to registered email addresses through the NFN

communication network. In addition announcements about the survey were posted on the

Facebook of Neighbors for Neighbors and on twitter for followers of the @Neighbortweet during

the days of data collection to encourage subscriber participation. We had a 5.9% response rate

with two-hundred individuals filling out the survey.

Who answered the Survey? Of those who answered the survey the majority of them (88%) are neighbors who live in

the communities of Boston where NFN has organized. An important group of respondents are

those who play multiple roles in the communities in which they live, of respondents 16.5% of

indicated that they identify with multiple roles in the community. This means that members of

Neighbors for Neighbors are not only people who live in the community but also volunteer their

time for non-profits, work in the communities they live in, are business owners, etc.

1 For questions, further information, details on the data or any other inquiries please contact Dr. Anna B. Sandoval

Girón at NFNevaluator@gmail.com or anna.b.sandoval@gmail.com

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More than half (57.4%) of respondents have lived in their neighborhood for over 10 years, while

13.4% have lived in their respective neighborhoods for less than three years.

Forty percent of respondents have been involved with the organization for less than one

year; Thirty-nine percent have been involved between 1-3 years. Eleven percent have been

involved for more than three years. The challenge remains to sustain long-term membership and

involvement with NFN. Below I detail some of the strategies that may be used to maintain long

term involvement.

88%

13%

2.50%

11.50%

2.50%

16.50%

Neighbor

work local non-profit

work for city

rep community org

business owner

multiple roles

Relationship to NFN(percentiles do not add to 100%)

40% 39%

11% 10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

Less than one year Between one and three years

More than three years Not a member

How long have you been a member of NFN?

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Almost 40% of respondents are between the ages of 31-40, making this age group the most

represented amongst respondents.

The majority of respondents were female (65.8% female as compared to 32.9% male and

0.6% transgender). In terms of ethnic and racial identity the overwhelming majority of

respondents identified as white (87.66%) as the graph below shows. A group that is worth

mentioning is those who did not answer the race/ethnicity question, 23% of those who filled the

survey chose not to answer this question. Regardless the differences in percentiles between the

groups is so wide, there is enough confidence in the data to suggest that the majority of members

of NFN identify as white. Unlike most surveys this survey allowed respondents to identify with

more than one race or ethnicity providing us with a nuanced picture of NFN, almost 4% of

individuals identified as multiracial.

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Network Features

The main themes that emerge from the analysis of the question: What is most valuable

to you about the NFN network? is members like to get updates on events; communication

and connecting (information on what is going on); and feel that NFN strengthens community

ties. The answers to this question nicely fit into the usage of features. When analyzing the

question: how often do you use the following features on the Neighbors for Neighbors

Network? members primarily used the features designed to communicate. Members report

using blogs (29.5%) and events (31.7%) at monthly rates; meanwhile making little use of other

features such as groups, multimedia, neighbors and members. The groups feature was only used

monthly by 20.8% of respondents, while it was never used by 46.7%. The feature of neighbors

and members has a similar pattern; only 14.8% of members use the feature monthly while 49%

of respondents have never used it. Meanwhile the multimedia feature monthly usage of 14.8%

while 65.2% have never used the feature. Below is a table that illustrates the responses for all the

questions and the frequency responses.

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In terms of the things that users feel need to change there are a variety of important and

insightful observations made in the open-ended questions. The primary themes that respondents

commented on in the areas that need improvement in the network are: the blogs, groups,

forums, the social network aspect of NFN, and the design of the website. Below I expand and

explain each of these areas.

The website is one area that users commented on. The comments centered on the ability

to navigate the site, the confusion in terms of how to get to the information that users needed,

and the number of items that appear at the home page. One respondent stated: “I can't work the

website; it's too busy, too complicated.” There are several solutions to work around these

concerns and re-design the site in a more user-friendly format that will allow those who visit the

site to easily navigate the features. This leads to the second of the areas that users feel need

improvement: features.

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The features that are used the most, based on the survey, are the blogs and the events. The

features with the least utilization are the multimedia (65.2% of respondents have never used the

multimedia feature), the neighbors and members (49.1% have never used the feature, while only

12% use it weekly), the groups feature (46.7% have never used it, 20% use it once a year), and

the forums (50% have never used it while 21.6% use it once a year). There are several

explanations to the low usage of these features. Even though users see the value in all these

features they find the navigation to find the items in the website difficult. In addition, users have

found that they can get the same services and features in other more popular websites therefore

they rather use other venues. For example, the forum service is duplicated and very effectively

done without registration by Craig’s List. The groups feature is duplicated by Meetup.com and

Facebook groups and to some extent twitter. Multimedia can be uploaded in other sites such as

twitter (via links to external sites: Twitpic, Flickr, Plixi and others) and on Facebook making the

use of the NFN features duplicates to the features of what other more popular and easier to

navigate sites are already doing.

The blog posts and the comments from the posts received a majority of the negative

comments. Users commented on the content of the blog posts, the way that comments are not

moderated, the usefulness (or not) of the comments, are all part of the many issues that were

raised in the areas that needed to be improved. For instance a respondent stated “The peanut

gallery comments on blogs. It seems to bring out the worst in people!” The focus on the

comments on the blog posts tells us that there is a need to institute new ways to moderate and

engage in conversation. A civil conversation does not necessarily mean a free-for all

conversation, it means a respectful and engaged conversation, which is what members are asking

for. To finish on a positive note, the calendar section is something that users feel is underutilized

and they would like to see a more robust place to access information about local events and

organizations.

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Appendix A: Technical information

Sampling

Non-probability sample modeling

This online survey will target an open population using the N4N network and it

will be posted in the Network's website, in Twitter, Facebook, and sent as an

email to the members of the network. This means that the sample is a non-

probability sample. This limits the external validity of the results but allows us

to understand the situation of the users of the N4N network.

Data Gathering

The data was gathered between February 2 and February 7, 2011 using the

online survey software SurveyMonkey. Invitations to participate in the survey

were sent to a total of 3380 members of one of the Boston area NFN networks:

Jamaica Plain (Members 2387)

Charlestown (Members 152)

Dorchester (228 members)

East Boston (Members 174)

North end (Members 127)

Roxbury (Members 45)

Allston Brighton (Members 105)

South end (Members 57)

Roslindale (Members 104)

The survey was officially open between February 2 and February 5, 2011 but

remained accessible until February 7.

We received a total of 200 respondents to the survey, response rate 5.9%

Data Analysis

Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data collected.

The Quantitative data was analyzed through SPSS. All variables were analyzed

for frequencies, when appropriate variables were re-coded for clarity and ease of

analysis.