Overnight Camp Satisfaction Insights

Uncover what makes your camp thrive: Camper & Staff Satisfaction Surveys

See how your camp measures up with in-depth surveys designed to pinpoint strengths. Our Camper Satisfaction Insight (CSI) and Staff Satisfaction Insight (SSI) surveys go beyond basic feedback. They provide a customizable look at your entire camp experience, from family perspectives (programming, safety, facilities) to staff retention (satisfaction, likelihood to return).

Actionable insights to elevate your camp:

Identify strengths: Celebrate what makes your camp special and unique.
Pinpoint areas for growth: Address camper and staff concerns proactively.
Year-to-year tracking: Monitor progress and measure the impact over time.
Industry benchmarks: See your camp results in relation to other camps.

New Features this year:

Compare your camp results to other camps in your region.
Compare your new vs returning staff results.
OPT-IN to a strategic conversation with FJC on your results.
OPT-IN to a new brief mid-summer pulse survey for staff.

Powered by expertise:

The Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) administers both CSI and SSI in partnership with Summation Research. The price of these tools has remained the same for camps since 2021 as FJC continues to subsidize the cost to run the surveys.

Why Choose Satisfaction Insights Surveys?

Camp parents are the core of a camp’s business. They ultimately decide whether or not to select a particular camp as the best summer experience for their child and whether to recommend a camp to others.

Camper Satisfaction Insights (CSI) provides a look at what parents and campers really think of everything—from programming to safety, and food to facilities. This in-depth, customizable market research tool helps camps pinpoint strengths and weaknesses according to respondents’ feedback. By revealing potential areas for improvement, camp management can identify an action plan that will help them better serve parents, campers, and their budget.

How is CSI benefiting camps? See what the field is saying:

The information gathered through these professional surveys has provided us with customer satisfaction data for all aspects of the Ramah Wisconsin experience. This valuable information has helped us enhance our program to better meet the needs of our campers and will be a very valuable tool as we develop a strategic plan for the coming decade.”

-Dr. Jeff Kopin, President, Camp Ramah in Wisconsin

The survey was incredibly helpful in identifying both areas in which we successfully stand out and areas needing improvement. As a team, my staff was able to utilize the results as a tool to delve deeper into bettering camp.”

– Michelle Koplan, Executive Director B’nai B’rith Camp

Staff members are essential to running a successful camp, and satisfied staff usually means a happy group of campers, a smoother run-operation, and a higher-level program. Staff Satisfaction Insights (SSI) will help you capture feedback from your staff, measuring staff satisfaction and their Jewish experience at camp. Soliciting feedback from this important stakeholder group can help with staff recruitment, training and development, and will support your efforts in creating a transformative Jewish experience for your staff community.

For Participating Camps

2025 Satisfaction Insight Surveys

We are excited you’re participating in FJC’s Satisfaction Insights this year. These surveys will provide you with insights into the experiences of your whole camp community. We hope you’ll mine your data for learnings that can help your camp continue to thrive.

This page has everything you need to know about the SIs. From a timeline of important dates to strategies for getting a good response rate. New to the SI’s? You can watch our orientation video here.

If you didn’t register for the 2025 Satisfaction Insights, we hope you’ll consider signing up for them for summer 2026. Look out for our announcements about registration next spring.

Important Dates

If you are participating in the CSI only, you last heard from us on June 5th. If you are participating in the SSI’s, you last heard from us on July 7th. Check your inbox for emails from data@jewishcamp.org with your survey links, passwords, and dashboard instructions.

Timeline
Early June	You will receive the links and password for your CSI
Late June	You will receive the links to send out your SSI, SSI pulse, and CSI and SSI dashboards will go live
After each session	Send your CSI links to families
Intersession or Mid-summer	Send your SSI pulse survey
End of Summer	Send your SSI a few days before staff leave and remind them to fill it out if they haven’t already once they get home
September 7^th	CSI closes
September 14^th	SSI closes
Fall 2025	Review your dashboards with your team to start planning for next summer!

CSI Response Rate Tips

Delegate – Is there someone who could help you send out these emails?
Make a plan before camp starts. – You can write your email now and paste the survey link in when you get it in June. Then, schedule the emails to go out at the appropriate time.

Click here to view an example email

Subject: Help Us Make Camp Even Better!

Dear [CAMP NAME] Families,

We’d love your help making camp the best it can be! Please take a few minutes to fill out our Camper Satisfaction Insights (CSI) survey.

Your feedback helps us understand what worked for your family and how we can improve for next summer.

[Insert survey link here]

Thanks so much for being part of our community!

Warmly,
[Camp Director]

SSI Response Rate Tips

Share positive responses from the CSI with staff – remind them that they will get to fill out a survey too and that their feedback is invaluable!
Share how you made a change based on what you heard from last year’s SSI or what you heard on the SSI pulse survey.
Give staff time to fill out the survey while they are still at camp. Offer a special treat and a break in the air conditioning while staff fill out the survey on their phones.
Send personal messages – people are more willing to do something if they have a personal connection with the person asking. Have supervisors send heartfelt texts after camp asking their supervisees to fill out the survey.
Offer an incentive – a gift card to staff, raffle some swag

Utilizing the Dashboard

Your dashboard updates in real time
There is a guide in your dashboard that will show you how it works – click the tab that says “How to use your dashboard”
If you registered to collect parent emails to keep an updated email list or to follow up on an incentive your camp offered, you can find those on your dashboard under “Incentive and Reminder Emails”

IMPORTANT: In order to log into your dashboard, you will need to reset your password. To do this, go to the dashboard site (link in your email), enter the username we provided on July 7th and leave the password box empty. Click ‘forgot-password’ to set up a new password of your choosing.

FJC’s Learning & Research team and our partners at Summation Research are here to support you, providing guidance and suggestions for how to improve your camp’s response rate.  If you have questions about the CSI or SSI, please email data@jewishcamp.org

FAQs

What kinds of questions will the surveys ask families and staff to answer?

The CSI will ask families to provide their reflections and satisfaction ratings with:

The overall experience
Camp programming & facilities
The social emotional environment at camp
Camp policies and communication
Impacts of camp
Camp leadership and staff
Jewish life
Demographics
Open ended questions to gather testimonials and feedback

The SSI measures and provides insights regarding:

Overall satisfaction and likelihood of returning
Impacts of camp
Work environment
Direct supervision & camp leadership
The social emotional environment at camp
Quality of training and professional development
Jewish experience
Demographics
Open ended questions to gather testimonials and feedback

When Do I Send My Surveys Out?

CSI – We recommend sending out the CSI after each session. Send out one survey per family, not per camper. 

SSI Pulse – Send the pulse survey to staff at the midpoint of the summer. If you do staff performance evaluations, we suggest sending the pulse survey beforehand to show staff that camp is interested in their feedback.  

SSI – Send this out at the end of the summer. We suggest scheduling time to do it while staff are still physically at camp and provide a snack or treat. Do not use the survey as a ticket to leave camp or a barrier to receiving your last paycheck. If there is not time to administer it at camp, send it right after counselors leave with a message of gratitude for their hard work and a promise to use their feedback to make next summer even better. 

What are the best practices for a good response rate?

CSI – Talk up the surveys! Tell parents at pick up and drop off that they should expect the survey in their inbox in a couple of days and that you really appreciate them taking the time to fill it out.
SSI – Offer an incentive like a gift card or raffle off some swag.

What are the dashboards, and what information do they include?

The data dashboards display your camp’s quantitative and qualitative CSI and SSI data. On your dashboards, you will see key respondent demographics (who is responding to your survey) including gender, grade, and number of summers spent at camp. You will also see the results for the key summary measures and the overall dimensional summary measures.  The dashboards will also include qualitative data, so your camp will be able to see respondents’ written feedback for each overall dimensional measure.

Please note that the dashboards are not designed to download for offline use. Purchasing your slide decks is the easiest way to print and disseminate your data to stakeholders without dashboard access. 

What are the slide decks, and how are these used by camps?

The slide decks display both detailed and high-level findings from your camp’s data including sample size/representativeness, the parent profile, your camp’s story with detailed analyses and year-to-year comparisons of your camp’s data (if your camp participated in the survey previously), and how your camp compares to the national average. Camps often share these easy-to-digest presentations with their boards and key stakeholders to reflect on their summer and make changes for the future.

What are the presentations, and why are these valuable?

CSI Learning Discussion & Presentation: The learning discussions and presentations for the CSI are facilitated by Mark Sass and Linda Denham of the Summation Research Group – the company that, together with the FJC, designed and fielded the CSI since 2006. The presentation reviews all CSI results for your camp and provides regional and national perspectives as appropriate. For this presentation you will also need to purchase the slide deck.

SSI Learning Discussion & Presentation: The learning discussions and presentations for the SSI are facilitated by Dr. Daniel Shore. Daniel leverages his 10+ summers of camp staff and leadership experience, PhD in Workplace Psychology, and knowledge of field-wide best practices for leading camp staff based on his 5 years of running SSI sessions to help you glean valuable insights while interpreting your SSI data with you.

If I choose to add custom questions, how are they reported?

Results for your custom questions are provided to you in a separate, Excel-based report and are also included in the slide deck, should you select that option.

When can I register for the surveys?

Registration for the Satisfaction Insights Surveys will open in the spring. Check your inbox for more information in the upcoming year.