ThoughtExchange and SurveyMonkey offer survey platforms that help districts connect with their community, but they cater to different needs and priorities.
ThoughtExchange surveys offer varied feedback methods, customization, and AI-powered analysis. ThoughtExchange is perfect for districts wanting to invest in a tool that saves time and resources.
SurveyMonkey provides a simple platform for building surveys. SurveyMonkey targets districts aiming to save money by handling manual tasks themselves.
Engaging Stakeholders
- Surveys
- Exchanges
- Interviews
- Surveys
- Forms
Tailored Surveys
- K-12 survey templates
- Deep Dive
- Build with AI
Unlocking Insights
- AI-powered Advisor
- Efficient, unbiased analysis
- Integrated data insights
- Standard data visualization
- Word clouds
- Response tagging
Insights to Action
- AI-enabled prioritization
- Strategic next steps
- Contextualized recommendations
- None
Supporting Initiatives
- CSM and support team knowledgeable in K-12 education needs
- General product support
Engaging Stakeholders
Go beyond surveys for deeper insights
ThoughtExchange provides tools that foster deep collaborative dialogue which is a crucial component of meaningful stakeholder development. SurveyMonkey is useful for simpler data collection tasks.
ThoughtExchange
ThoughtExchange provides a comprehensive suite of engagement tools designed to help districts understand and engage stakeholders.
Surveys
Easily gather quantitative insights and qualitative feedback to understand stakeholder sentiments.
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Exchanges
Allow participants to openly share, rate, and prioritize ideas, surfacing different perspectives and encouraging collaborative dialogue on critical issues.
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Interviews
Use conversational AI to conduct confidential, scalable interviews that explore stakeholder motivations and sentiments more deeply.
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SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey primarily offers survey tools focused on straightforward data collection.
Surveys
Collect quantitative and qualitative data.
Forms
Create basic online forms to gather essential information.
“Surveys in ThoughtExchange have been a game-changer. With the Survey piece, we don’t have to tie in another system like a Google form or SurveyMonkey in addition to our Exchanges. People are less willing to do two different surveys, so getting them engaged through one platform has been great.”
Sondra Whalen, Director of Student Programs and Communications
Vernon-Verona Sherrill Central School District
Tailored surveys
Get the right data, faster
ThoughtExchange is focused on K-12 education, allowing districts to create surveys quickly and easily. SurveyMonkey provides general survey creation, with fewer education-specific features.
ThoughtExchange
ThoughtExchange offers a flexible, customizable, and easy-to-deploy survey experience designed for K-12 education:
K-12 Templates
Quickly launch surveys using a robust library of templates tailored to common K-12 scenarios, saving valuable time and resources.
Deep Dive
Clarify and contextualize feedback with Deep Dive, a powerful AI-driven tool enabling targeted follow-up questions for deeper insights.
Quantitative and qualitative feedback
Advanced analytics tools empower districts to effortlessly collect, analyze, and leverage both quantitative data and rich qualitative insights.
Customization
Highly customizable survey options allow alignment with unique district or school-specific needs.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey provides survey-building capabilities but with a narrower scope:
Templates
Offers a general library of templates, though K-12-specific options are limited.
Build with AI
Allows users to generate surveys and questions with AI assistance.
Quantitative focus
Primarily emphasizes quantitative data collection with fewer features designed to extract meaningful qualitative insights.
“I love the ease of use of the ThoughtExchange user interface and navigation—the ease of creating and managing a survey, implementing Spanish translation, and diving into the results. It’s night and day from what we used to do with free surveys.”
Alex Andary, Data and Assessment Specialist, Calistoga Joint Unified School District
Unlocking Insights
AI-powered vs. manual analysis
ThoughtExchange excels in providing deeper, actionable, and unbiased insights, ensuring stakeholder feedback directly informs strategic decisions. SurveyMonkey provides basic visualization and tagging capabilities.
ThoughtExchange
ThoughtExchange provides a comprehensive solution for extracting actionable insights from survey data.
Advisor (AI-Powered)
Advisor offers an intuitive conversational interface, making it effortless to explore your data and uncover hidden insights. Results are immediately digestible and ready for use in communications, reports, and presentations.
Efficient, unbiased analysis
AI-driven analysis quickly and objectively identifies key themes and sentiments from qualitative data, minimizing human bias and highlighting insights that might be overlooked manually.
Integrated data insights
Seamlessly blend quantitative and qualitative data, enabling users to explore the "why" behind the numbers, providing deeper context and understanding of stakeholder perspectives.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey offers standard capabilities for data analysis.
Data visualization
Standard visualizations like charts and tables for straightforward data interpretation.
Word clouds
Limited qualitative analysis, mainly visualizing open-text responses as simple word clouds.
Response tagging
Manually tag and categorize open-text responses, a process that can be resource-intensive and subject to bias.
“ThoughtExchange is a game changer. Without it, it would take us days to go through our engagement data and get it to this level of detail. We don't have to read through every single response. It's all right here for us.”
Joseph Guccia, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching, Learning & Accountability, Johnson City Central School District
Insights to action
Make data-driven decisions with confidence
ThoughtExchange empowers you to move from insights to action on the things that impact your community’s success. SurveyMonkey requires manual analysis and relies on exporting data for external processing.
ThoughtExchange
ThoughtExchange helps you quickly translate insights into concrete actions.
AI-powered prioritization
Advisor analyzes both quantitative and qualitative feedback to quickly highlight critical areas needing attention, helping you prioritize community-driven initiatives effectively.
Actionable next steps
Advisor integrates best practices and specific survey feedback to instantly recommend practical next steps. Regardless of your expertise level, Advisor serves as a reliable copilot guiding informed decisions and actions.
Contextualized recommendations
Enhance Advisor’s accuracy by uploading strategic documents such as your district’s strategic plan. This ensures recommendations align with broader organizational goals, promoting consistency and effectiveness.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey does not have any comparable features. Instead, SurveyMonkey enables users to manually analyze and act on data:
Export and share reports
Users can export survey data in various formats or integrate it with external business intelligence tools.
“We use the ThoughtExchange Advisor whenever we do an engagement, whether it's for creating a presentation to the Board or even just for some good summaries of the results.”
Ben Finfer, Director of Communications and Community Relations, North Shore School District 112
Supporting initiatives
Expert support designed for school districts
ThoughtExchange provides support and success services specialized for K-12 education. SurveyMonkey offers product support but may not be able to meet specialized education needs.
ThoughtExchange
ThoughtExchange builds comprehensive, tailored support directly into your license:
Dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM)
Receive personalized guidance from a dedicated CSM who understands your specific challenges and goals.
Specialized K-12 support team
Gain access to a responsive and knowledgeable support team experienced in addressing the unique needs of K-12 education.
Strategic guidance
Benefit from ongoing strategic advice, best practices, and implementation support to ensure your initiatives drive meaningful outcomes.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey offers general support services:
General support
Access basic product support from a generalist team whose expertise spans broad product usage. They have limited specialization in K-12 educational needs.
"Behind the scenes, the ThoughtExchange team is providing valuable service—and helping thousands of kids throughout the country. Thank you for the work that you do."
Paula Patterson, Superintendent - Crosby ISD
SurveyMonkey gathers opinions. ThoughtExchange turns them into outcomes.
Let our team show you how to level up your K-12 engagement.
