BERE Community Project is canvassing local opinion on a range of new undertakings, including a pre-school and nursery building and a skateboarding area.
Questionnaires are being distributed around the Bere Peninsula with the parish magazine, through post offices, schools and local organisations.
The project's committee aims to collate the results of the survey by the end of February and to take a decision at a meeting in March on which plans to pursue.
Committee member Caroline Rae said it could take a year or two to carry out any of the schemes.
A new building next to the school to cater for pre-school and nursery children — if this is what local people want — could cost up to £100,000, it has been unofficially estimated. A safe area at the Down, Bere Alston, for skateboarding, rollerblading and biking would be a lot less costly, but could nevertheless require substantial fund-raising.
The committee will also look at ideas for providing activities for the elderly.
'We have to know what people actually want before we can say what it is likely to cost,' said Caroline Rae.
The charity was set up as the Bere Ferrers Parish Community Project in 1990 to carry out the re-modelling of Bere Alston Primary School. It raised £157,000 for a larger school hall which could also be used by local residents outside school hours.
In 1996 the new hall opened and since then it has been used by a number of local youth and adult groups.
The committee which achieved this, led by chairman Pat Mayston, has now handed over to a new committee which will taking on the work stemming from the results of the survey.