City of Cedar Rapids Participating in 2022 National Community Survey

City Seeking Residents' Opinions

The City of Cedar Rapids wants to hear from you! The City will be mailing surveys to a random sample of households to participate in The National Community Survey™ (The NCS™). This will be the fourth time this survey has been administered in Cedar Rapids; the first was in 2016.

Polco, the company who issues the survey, has recently adopted a sustainable-friendly hybrid method to reduce the excessive use of paper. A portion of randomly selected households will be mailed traditional paper surveys, while other households will receive a postcard with a link to complete the survey online. All results received from randomly selected households invited to participate in the survey — whether received through paper surveys or online surveys — will be compiled and analyzed together.

The confidential responses will be weighted and analyzed in order to provide information on how the city government is serving residents, to gauge perceptions of the city, and to make comparisons with peer cities. The NCS centers on community livability and includes questions about the quality of life in the community, local policies, demographics, rating of local government services and resident use of services. The results will be used by the council and city staff to help make decisions about how best to use public resources to provide services, address priorities, and promote the community. The results will be reported to the council and residents in June 2022.

“City Council and staff are extremely interested in residents' thoughts regarding a variety of topics related to community perceptions, city government services and more," said Sandi Fowler, Deputy City Manager. "It is extremely important that invited households participate, as their opinions will be used to gauge the attitudes and opinions of their community."

A public, opt-in version of the survey will be posted online in April for any interested resident of Cedar Rapids to share their feedback. Residents who do not receive an invitation to participate in the scientific survey sample can use this option to participate instead.

It is important for residents who received an invitation to participate through the mail, whether through a paper survey or postcard with online link, to follow the instructions they received to complete their survey rather than completing the opt-in version available to the public in April.

The City contracted with National Research Center at Polco to participate in The NCS™, an instrument that was developed in partnership with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in 2001 to provide cities with a low-cost, high-quality method to conduct market research.

About The National Community Survey™:
The National Community Survey™ is provided by the National Research Center (NRC) at Polco in partnership with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). NRC benchmarks against more than 500 jurisdictions throughout the country. The NCS™ is a high-quality cost-effective scientific survey of resident opinion and an important benchmarking tool that allows for comparison among communities. Communities using The NCS™ have reported that the tool helped improve performance, strengthen communications with community stakeholders, and identify clear priorities for use in goal and budget setting.