
We are excited to announce the launch of our biannual all member survey. Your responses help staff and leadership understand the needs of our community and learn where we need to prioritize resources. We are eager to check in about your experience as Mountaineers members and leaders and look toward the future together.
Take the 2025 Survey
Current members ages 18+ in good standing should have received a personalized invitation in their inboxes from Alchemer on or before February 1, 2025*. The survey is designed to take about 10-15 minutes, depending on your level of involvement. The survey will be open until 11:59pm on Sunday, February 16, 2025. We want your feedback regardless of how you choose to engage with our community!
We benefit from a high response rate, and we need your help to keep it up! Our last Member & Volunteer Survey was conducted in winter 2022 and 16% of the members emailed responded. Those results helped to shape our strategic plan, Adventure with Purpose. When our survey participation rate is high, we are better able to align our strategies and resources with the experiences and values of our community. Your responses are confidential. Only aggregate data will be shared with our community – including the Board of Directors, program managers, and committee leadership – to guide our path forward together.
Past survey results
We started conducting membership trackers in the late 1990s, and made the process formal with an org-wide survey in 2011. We followed it up with very similar surveys in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 to help us understand changes over time. We also launched a special volunteer survey in 2015 with the intent of running it on alternative years to the member survey, but in the end, combining the surveys made the most sense, which we did for the first time in 2018. While we were due for a biannual survey in 2024, some unexpected circumstances impacting staff capacity prompted a strategic decision to delay the survey to 2025. We intend to continue this project biannually, with the next all member survey projected for 2027.
Here's a quick historical recap of our findings:
- Based on the full 2014 Membership Survey results we invested in a new Leadership Development Manager position to support volunteers, hired a Communications Specialist to improve our communications support for conservation and branches, and got approval for an additional investment in technology from the board.
- Our 2015 Volunteer Survey showed that our volunteers were generally satisfied, but that the admin work associated with volunteering was draining. Due in part to these responses, we created the Progressive Climbing Education process and added additional staff support for our volunteers. Volunteer support was called out as a critical priority in our Vision 2022 Strategic Plan.
- In the 2016 Membership Survey, we learned that the majority of members maintained the marked improvement in satisfaction, and that we have opportunities through continued focus on equity and belonging, improving processes and transparency to remove "red tape", and increasing course and activity offerings to give people even more opportunities to explore the outdoors, improve skills, and protect the places where we play.
- Our combined 2018 Member & Volunteer Survey identified key factors to renewal and the importance of personal leadership development opportunities for volunteers. The 2018 survey also provided further support for the areas of work we designed in our Vision 2022 Strategic Plan: to LEAD innovation in outdoor education, ENGAGE future Mountaineers, and ADVOCATE fiercely for our wild places.
- Our 2020 Member & Volunteer Survey wrapped in February 2020, right before the pandemic stopped us in our tracks. We took immediate austerity measures, and are happy to be thriving today. The results again mirrored the importance of key programs supporting Vision 2022, some of which have launched in the last two years: Alpine Ambassadors, Break Camps, Carbon Footprint Reduction Committee, Climb Leader Progression, Equity & Inclusion Committee, Leadership Development Series Seminars, Mini Mountaineers, Mountain Education Alliance, Outdoor Alliance and Outdoor Alliance Washington, and the Public Lands 101 eLearning Course.
- Our 2022 Member & Volunteer Survey came about just as life was beginning to re-normalize after the COVID-19 pandemic. We noticed an improvement in general perceptions of our positive role in the community, but also a dip in member satisfaction likely related to the stark decrease in programming in 2020 and 2021. Results confirmed that demand for member and volunteer services was on an upswing, making a case for reinvestment in these areas after cutbacks during the height of the pandemic. The 2022 survey results played a massive role in informing our strategic plan Adventure with Purpose, which was formally launched in 2023. This plan connects our 119 year legacy with our future where all people feel belonging in the outdoors.
We appreciate the thoughtful feedback shared with us during this process. We hope you are as excited about the future as we are!
*If you have not received your survey link by February 2, 2025, or if you share an email address with a partner and would like your own link, please reach out to mckenziecd@mountaineers.org.