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PARISH CULTURE SURVEY 2024

HOW ARE WE DOING
Find out the number of responses for each parish by language
(Total, English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa).
The data in the below is updated every morning at 9:00.

WHAT IS THE PARISH CULTURE SURVEY

Download Information Sheet here

The Parish Culture Survey is designed to measure parishioners’ experience in a particular parish. It gives each parish an understanding as to how effective that parish is in living out the Church’s Missionary Mandate and gives insights that helps parishes improve portfolio and overall parish experiences for that purpose.

Parish Culture Survey 2023

Last year 2023, Parish Alive ran the first Parish Culture Survey across the whole Archdiocese of Cape Town for all parishes. It was very successful and approximately 60 parishes participated. For the first time, it gave parishes a stick by which to measure how the parish is doing. It helped parishes identify priority areas in their planning.

Overview

  • The survey provides an assessment of how the parish is performing in terms of the seven portfolios (Liturgy, Community Engagement, Faith Formation, Parish Community Building, Youth & Young Adults, Marriage & Family Life, Evangelisation)
  • In the survey, parishioners are also given an opportunity to submit comments. This qualitative input complements the quantitative data with further insights.
  • The survey gives an impartial measurement and provides constructive feedback on areas where things are going well, where there is progress, and where there are opportunities for additional effort, innovation, and improvement.
  • The running of the survey and gathering of the results is confidential and complies with the Protection of Personal Information Act.
  • Responses are completely anonymous. No personally identifying information or IP addresses are collected.
  • The survey is completed online via the secure platform of SurveyMonkey. Hardcopies are available if required
  • The survey (online and hardcopy) is available in 3 languages: English, Afrikaans and isiXhosa.

EVERYONE IS ENCOURAGED TO PARTICIPATE

As everyone knows, it is desirable for AS MANY PEOPLE as possible across all ages to complete the survey. The more people who complete it, the more accurate and valuable the information. If only a few people complete the survey, the results become biased by what these few people think and this in turn does not utilise the full benefit of the survey.

Every parish should know how many people are in their parish. The number of people completing the survey as a percentage of the total parish population is an indication of the ‘survey significance’ for that parish. Eg. If you have 200 people complete the survey and your parish has 4,000 people in total, the survey significance is 200/ 4000 *100 = 5%. Try to get as many people as possible because only a handful of people is not representative of the opinions of the parish.

HOW IT WORKS AND THE PLAN

All parishes inform their parishioners about the upcoming survey, explaining what it is, why we are doing it and what will be expected of them. All parishioners are encouraged to participate in the survey. This simply means that every individual person completes the survey, which takes approximately 5 minutes to do. This time is well spent because it will provide parishes with very valuable input and feedback.

STAGE 2 RESOURCES:

Parishes need to send out the survey to all parishioners to complete.

Parishioners can complete the survey in two ways:

ONLINE: Each parish is provided with 3 UNIQUE LINKS for their parish (the one survey in 3 different languages – English, Afrikaans, IsiXhosa). Parishioners should use the relevant link to go online to complete the survey. It is easy to use and requires access to the internet.

HARDCOPY: For those people who do not have internet access or who do not use technology, there is a hardcopy form of the survey in PDF format. Three forms for the 3 different languages (English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa). The hard copy forms will need to be collected and each parish will be responsible for making arrangements to enter the forms into SurveyMonkey.

STAGE 3 RESOURCES:

Unique links for each parish in each language

The deadline for all parishes to complete their survey is 31 August which gives several weekends to promote and do the survey.

It is requested that parishes vigourously encourage people to complete the survey quickly. It does not take a long time, nor is it a big effort. If the survey is kept open too long, the process loses its vitality.

When the surveys are closed it is good practice to thank everyone for participating in the survey and to let them know what the next steps are. Ie we are ending Stage 4 and going into Stage 5.

STAGE 4 RESOURCES:

  • Letter2 to Parishioners (thanks and next steps on survey) (TO BE PROVIDED)

After the deadline of the survey, work starts to analyse the results and produce the parish reports. The surveys will be processed from 1 September, and it is planned to complete this by 30 September.

Once all the reports have been produced, they will be sent to the parishes. A unique personalised link will be sent to the Parish Priest and PPC Chairperson who can download their specific Parish Survey Report 2024. The individual reports will be kept confidential.

There will also be Archdiocese reports that are created from aggregated data and that can help the CPD and Archdiocese gain insights and use in planning.

There will be a webinar to go through the Parish Survey with all parishes to discuss and demonstrate how to process, interpret and use the reports.

Again, it is important that parishes continue to communicate with parishioners keeping them informed on the status of the survey.