Activist survey results have been compiled

Roughly a month ago, we sent a survey to our die-hard activists (segmented list) to learn a little bit more about who they are, what they want, and how we can improve our communication with them.

Surprisingly, they said they wanted more actions. Go figure. However, on top of that, we did learn a few additional things about our activists from this survey and hope to do the same with our current online web traffic survey.

The perception and use of the site by our core activists include:

• Loyal supporters: 42% visit AR online more often than rival sites like NRDC, Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club
• Clear threats: activists ranked pollution, overdevelopment and farm/industrial water run-off as three top threats facing rivers today
• Inspiring issues: nearly 50% of all respondents cited Clean Water and America’s Most Endangered Rivers as two issues that moved them most
• Taking action: 62% of respondents used the website most often to take action
• Infrequent visits: 75% visit AR’s site once a month or less
• More of this: activists want to see more chances to take action; attention to local issues; and public policy updates
• Not very diverse: 91% are white, half are 50+ years, most are highly educated with high median incomes

All of this is pretty telling as we move forward with our information architecture. The knowledge gathered here, along with our 'web traffic' survey and (working on it now) 'community leader' survey, will greatly aid our efforts as we decide what information should float to the top.