We're very pleased to share the results of our TechSoup content survey. We surveyed the TechSoup community to learn more about the TechSoup resources they're currently using, the topics they'd like to learn about, and how TechSoup can best help them learn about nonprofit and library technology.

Over 2,000 people responded. Here's what they had to say.

Who's in the TechSoup Community?

The majority of survey respondents were nonprofit employees (57%), with board members (19%) making a good showing as well.

What Resources Does the Community Use?

The information about specific products proved most popular, followed by our articles, then the forums and webinars

And How Do They Use Them?

We asked how often respondents use each resource, with options ranging from daily to a few times a year. Most respondents said they used TechSoup resources a few times a year, with blog and forum users making more frequent visits. As one respondent said, "Mostly I've used Tech Soup when I have an actual need that you can address -- there is so little time for 'general info' browsing."

We also asked how useful each resource was, with 1 being "not at all useful" and 5 being "extremely useful." The individual product pages were considered most useful, followed by webinars, then articles (70-80% of respondents rated these resources a 4 or a 5).

What Do They Want to Learn About?

We also asked which topics the community would like to hear more about. Fundraising and cloud computing were the hot topics, but respondents were also interested in other topics ranging from volunteer management tools to mobile technology to social media.

How Do They Want to Learn?

For each topic respondents were interested in, we also asked about how they would like to receive that information: short blog posts, moderated forums, short or long articles, case studies, multimedia, or webinars.

Here are some of the trends:

• More short "how-to" articles: Overwhelmingly, respondents said they preferred short "how-to" articles for all topics. As one respondent said, "The problem, always, is time. I have about four job titles, everything from Director of Education, Development Director, Building Manager, and oh yeah, Executive Director… What matters most to me is really good writing so that I can understand the information quickly."
• But in-depth articles and webinars are useful, too. About 40% of respondents said longer, in-depth articles and webinars were also useful.
• Certain delivery methods may work better for some topics: for example, respondents were interested in case studies of other organizations as a way of learning about fundraising and disaster planning. And respondents were more interested in online events for social media than for other topics. Longer articles were also more interesting for disaster planning and tech planning than for other topics.

A Big Thank You

Thank you to everyone who responded to our survey! Your feedback and ideas will help us improve and expand our learning resources for nonprofits and libraries.

If you didn't have a chance to respond to the survey, or you have additional thoughts or suggestions, please share them in the comments below. Help us make TechSoup a better place!

TechSoup's Learning Resources

Quite a few survey respondents also mentioned that they weren't aware of some of the learning resources included in the survey. So, as a reminder, these are other ways TechSoup can help you learn about nonprofit and library technology topics:

• The TechSoup Blog
• TechSoup Forums
• Articles
• Webinars and other online events
• Information pages about specific products
• Nonprofit Commons
• Community Wiki
• NetSquared
• TechSoup Global for our partners around the world
• TechSoup for Libraries