OKPOLICY.ORG
A few months ago, we asked you to give us some feedback about how you use the information that we provide and what you’d like to see us do in the future. Nearly one thousand of you took our survey, and the responses gave us valuable information about who our audience is and what you want most. Now that we’ve had time to analyze the responses, we wanted to thank everyone who took the time to complete the survey and share some of the highlights.
Who’s following OK Policy
With 990 responses, we feel like the survey picked up a good sample of who is in our audience. At the least, it provides insight into our most engaged audience members who were willing to take the time to complete it. Here’s what you look like:
- About 6 out of 10 respondents (58 percent) were women.
- Nearly one out of four respondents identified themselves as educators (24 percent). Other common professional categories were non-profit workers (16 percent), government workers (14 percent), and academics (12 percent).
- Nearly 98 percent of survey respondents live in Oklahoma. Slightly more respondents are located in the Oklahoma City metro area (43.5 percent) than the Tulsa metro (37.1 percent). Together these two metro areas comprised about 80 percent of our respondents, which were over-represented from their 61 percent share of the state’s total population.
Compared to the demographics of the state as a whole, survey respondents were tilted towards towards white Oklahomans, Democrats, and those living in urban centers. The results are helping us to pinpoint where we might need to do more outreach to broaden the types of people getting our information.
You like us!
We asked in the survey for you to rate us from 1 to 5 stars on several metrics. On every metric we averaged higher than 4.5 stars — including very high rankings for being accessible and understandable, trustworthy, interesting, timely, and relevant and useful. The lowest ranking (though still greater than 4 stars) was for having an accessible and easy to navigate website. Hopefully our recent mobile-friendly redesign has helped with those concerns.
The most common way that respondents accessed our information is through our email list (62 percent) followed by social media (52 percent). Nearly 7 in 10 respondents accessed our resources several times per week or more. Majorities also shared our information through social media or email (65 percent) or with members of a group they belong to (52 percent). About one-third (32 percent) used our information when contacting elected officials.
On the other hand, just 20 percent have attended one of OK Policy’s events throughout the year, and just 18 percent have participated in our Together Oklahoma or Oklahoma Assets coalitions. And even though respondents seem to highly value our information, just 22 percent had donated in the last 12 months (Hint, hint!).
The issues you care about most
Perhaps influenced by the high percentage of educators among survey respondents, K-12 education was in the top three issues for 53 percent of you, followed by state budget and taxes (48 percent). Tied for third place were poverty and health care, both at 40 percent. Among the issues you asked us to add to our research, urban/municipal issues was the most popular at 40 percent, followed by employment and labor (36 percent) and environmental issues (35 percent).
The most requested types of content were in-depth reports (41 percent) and infographics (40 percent). We took from these results that it is important for us to continue to deeply explore the big issues, but we also need to make that information easily accessible in smaller doses.
Overall, respondents expressed appreciation and respect for the work that we do. One survey respondent said, “I am so grateful to have you as a resource for our state. You are willing to take on tough, complex issues and bring them to light in a way that most nonprofits don’t have the capability to do. Thank you for your important work!” Another said, “I appreciate your dedication to your research. I may not always agree with your viewpoint but you always provide complete information on how you formed your position.”
We’ve gone over all the feedback and are already using it to improve our work. Thanks to a group of Master of Public Administration students at OU-Tulsa, who helped to develop the survey and analyze the results as a class project. We’re grateful to everyone who uses our information, and especially those who share it in their communities and with elected officials. We couldn’t do it without you!
