Who reads Street Sense? What do readers think about the newspaper? Why do they stop on the side of the street to buy a newspaper from someone they have probably never met before in their life? These are just a few of the questions Street Sense set out to answer with the 2012 Readership Survey conducted from July 18 to August 7.
Readers were invited to provide their feedback through the Survey Monkey website or by mailing a copy of the survey printed in the newspaper. By the end of the survey, 101 readers responded with their answers, comments, ideas, suggestions and insights.
Before getting into the numbers and statistics, we here at Street Sense would like to thank the readers who took the time to provide their feedback. We intend to use the data collected from this effort to better serve the community and to provide the highest quality newspaper possible. The better our product, the more it will help our vendors as they work diligently to overcome the challenges they face.
So then, what has Street Sense learned from this year’s survey?
Readers buy the newspaper to support the vendors. While large percentages want to learn about their community and get a different perspective on poverty and homelessness, more than 80 percent of respondents indicated they want to provide support to vendors more than anything else.
Street Sense readers are loyal. More than 70 percent of those who responded to the survey indicate they purchase at least one copy of each issue with many purchasing multiple copies of each issue. And once a reader purchases a newspaper, responses to the survey indicate that the reader is likely to read the newspaper from cover-to-cover.
While some readers who responded to the survey would like to see more coverage of news and others would like to see more contributions from vendors on the pages of Street Sense, the majority of responses (65.35 percent ) indicate readers are happy with the overall blend of news and vendor contributions.
Of course, the survey did yield some insight into who buys the newspaper as well as their motivations and opinions. More than twice as many women responded to the survey as men. The largest group of respondents was between the ages of 46 and 65. More than a quarter reported an annual income of between $40,000 and $79,999 and more than half of the respondents indicated they have some form of advanced college degree. While Street Sense readers come from many walks of life, the bulk of our respondents came from the government and nonprofit sectors.
Again, the organization sincerely thanks all of the readers who took the time to respond to the survey.
