How To Get The Most Out Of Your Poll Module

Polls are a simple and effective way to determine how your club members feel about a particular issue. They can be used for everything from working out what dates work best to host a certain event, voting on who will fill a specific club role, to asking your members how they felt a past club event went. 

They are a simple and effective tool your club should be utilising to help run your club and communicate with your members more effectively. The good news is that with Member Jungle, you won’t even have to try and organise polling your members with a clipboard and a pen at your next event. Instead, you can just use Member Jungle’s built-in Poll Module, 

This article will cover how to set up a poll, how to see your results and give you a few ideas of things you can use polls for. 

Why Your Club Should Be Using Polls

Clubs can use polls as a valuable tool to gauge the opinions and preferences of their members on various topics. 

Polls encourage informed decision-making by providing insights into the majority of members' interests, promoting member engagement and participation, and making your club a more democratic and inclusive community. Sharing your poll results and how those results determined a particular decision can go a long way in getting members on board with that decision. 

Admins can identify trends, tailor activities to member preferences by analysing poll results, and efficiently resolve conflicts.  

Overall, polls improve communication, increase member satisfaction, and enable administrators to make decisions that more members will agree with and not push back against. 

How To Set Up A Poll For Your Club 

The first step of setting up a poll for your club is to go to the Module section of the admin side of your site. From here, you need to navigate to the Poll option; this will take you to a page where you will be able to see all your existing and old polls. 

 

If this is your first time using the Poll Module, then this first page will be empty. To create a new poll, simply click the Add Poll button in the left-hand menu. Doing so will open the below screen.  

 

 

From this page, you can start setting up your poll. You will have a few mandatory fields to fill in and a few optional ones. 

You will have to fill in the below mandatory fields: 

• Name of the poll 
• What question the poll is asking 
• When the poll goes live
• When the poll closes
• At least one answer

You have the option to fill in the below fields: 

• Number of answers required 
• When the results are released to the members
• Whether the poll can be filled out by any member or just members of a particular level(s) or roles
• Up to 10 possible answers 

Once you have set up your poll and saved it, you will return to the page below. 

On this page, you will be able to see your newly created poll as well as a response counter, which, at this stage, should be at zero. You can also edit, delete, check results and activate your poll from this page. If you are happy with your poll, you can activate it. 

Once activated, your poll will appear on your main website under Modules and the Polls in the navigation bar. 

From here, all you need to do is send an email to your members letting them know there is a new poll to fill out and how to find it. 

How To See The Results Of Your Pole

Once your poll has been up for a while and you want to see the results, you just need to go back to the poll module page of your admin site, where you can create new polls and activate current ones. From here, you can select any poll and view the results, as seen below. 

 

 

This page will break down your poll's results into a vote count, answer percentage and a bar graph. You can also export these results as a CSV file if that is something you need. 

It's a good idea to share the poll results with everyone. This way, those who voted for a different day can understand why you made the decision you did. It's easier to accept a decision when you know that the majority of people want it, and it’s not just a few people at the top making all the decisions. This makes it easier for everyone to accept the final decision, even if it's not what they wanted to begin with.

What Can You Use Polls For? 

You can basically use polls for any topic you want; their only real limits are what you can imagine doing with them. In the above example, the poll was used to work out which date would be best to hold the club’s Christmas party. 

You could also use polls to get members to rate how a recent event or element of an event was. Getting this sort of immediate feedback can make a big difference in your club’s ability to improve your events continually. 

 

For more detailed feedback, consider trying out Member Jungle’s Survey Module. 

Using Polls To Hold Club Committee Elections

Depending on the structure of your organisation, you may hold elections or votes to decide who is a committee member. If you do, using the Poll Module as a voting system for committee members is a brilliant idea. It is a way for every club member to anonymously vote for who they want to be a committee member from a predetermined list of candidates. 

You can see an example of this in action below. 

How Else Can I Use The Member Jungle System Better To Help My Club? 

That’s about all you need to know about why you should be using polls for your club and how to set one up. In the next few weeks, there will be a new article going up on the Member Jungle Learning Centre on how to best use the Survey Module. So, keep your eyes peeled for that one. 

In the meantime why not read, 5 Ways To Get More Of Your Members Using The Member Jungle App. 

Or read, How To Get The Most Out Of Your Document Library.