Public Participation

The survey and its administration are standardized to assure high quality research methods and directly comparable results across The National Citizen Survey™ jurisdictions. Participating households are selected at random and the household member who responds is selected without bias. Multiple mailings give each household more than one chance to participate with self-addressed and postage-paid envelopes. Results are statistically weighted to reflect the proper demographic composition of the entire community. A total of 652 completed surveys were obtained, providing an overall response rate of 23%. Typically, response rates obtained on citizen surveys range from 20% to 40%.

The National Citizen Survey™ customized for the City of Winston-Salem was developed in close cooperation with local jurisdiction staff. Winston-Salem staff selected items from a menu of questions about services and community issues and provided the appropriate letterhead and signatures for mailings. City of Winston-Salem staff also augmented The National Citizen Survey™ basic service through a variety of options including a custom set of benchmark comparisons, crosstabulation of results and several custom questions.

NRC’s database of comparative resident opinion is comprised of resident perspectives gathered in citizen surveys from approximately 500 jurisdictions whose residents evaluated local government services and gave their opinion about the quality of community life. The comparison evaluations are from the most recent survey completed in each jurisdiction; most communities conduct surveys every year or in alternating years. NRC adds the latest results quickly upon survey completion, keeping the benchmark data fresh and relevant.

The City of Winston-Salem chose to have comparisons made to the entire database and a subset of similar jurisdictions from the database (cities in the Southern region with populations from 100,000 to 450,000). A benchmark comparison (the average rating from all the comparison jurisdictions where a similar question was asked) has been provided when a similar question on the City of Winston-Salem Survey was included in NRC’s database and there were at least five jurisdictions in which the question was asked. For most questions compared to the entire dataset, there were more than 100 jurisdictions included in the benchmark comparison.

The National Citizen Survey™ (The NCS™) is a collaborative effort between National Research Center, Inc. (NRC) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

The survey and its administration are standardized to assure high quality survey methods and comparable results across The National Citizen Survey™ jurisdictions. Participating households are selected at random and the household member who responds is selected without bias. Multiple mailings give each household more than one chance to participate with self-addressed and postage paid envelopes. Results are statistically weighted to reflect the proper demographic composition of the entire community.

The National Citizen Survey™ customized for this jurisdiction was developed in close cooperation with local jurisdiction staff. The City of Winston-Salem staff selected items from a menu of questions about services and community problems; they defined the jurisdiction boundaries NRC used for sampling; and they provided the appropriate letterhead and signatures for mailings. City of Winston-Salem staff also determined local interest in a variety of add-on options to The National Citizen Survey™ Basic Service.