Young people who have participated in the Community Child and Youth Well-being Survey have generally reported that their main motivation is the opportunity to improve the conditions and lives of their peers. 

At the same time, the time and effort involved in completing a survey deserves some level of recognition or compensation. Young people who take on advisory or project implementation roles should receive payment, honoraria or credit for required school volunteer hours. Young people attending related events may receive honoraria and have direct costs, such as public transit fares, covered. For young people who complete the survey, benefits could include the chance to enter their name in a prize draw, earning credits toward school obligations such as volunteer hours, receiving food and drink at a survey completion party, and/or receiving “merch,” such as shirts or hoodies. 

Young people on the Steering Committee, Youth Animators, or those invited to a Youth Lab can ideate and advise on the incentives they think are motivating. Some communities have secured donated incentives from local businesses and organizations and, where budget permits, have created branded “merch,” such as t-shirts and hoodies. These might be provided at youth engagement events or in a draw upon completing the survey or at a live event (e.g., on Instagram). 

Incentives or compensation can be particularly useful in situations where you are working to ensure participation by groups whose voices are traditionally missed, such as newcomers, people living in poverty and racialized communities. You can work through an organization with connections to those young people, such as a cultural society, to set up specific opportunities for the surveys to be completed. This may involve taking iPads to locations where they are gathering or otherwise making computer access and effort easier. For instance, the Children and Youth Planning Table of Waterloo Region convened youth-led “survey parties,” where young people completed the survey in a convenient and comfortable space (e.g., the library). Engage Nova Scotia arranged to have interpreters on-hand at English as a Second Language classes offered through the local library system. Participants received assistance with filling out the survey as a part of their course work.

It is also possible that incentives will increase the number of “spurious” and unusable survey responses, so consider how incentives are best offered and make sure your data/research partner has effective filters in place to set aside spurious survey responses.

See Appendix for a sample prize draw ballot.