Qualitative Research

Research is very important in any field of public relations but especially in nonprofit public relations.  This is because nonprofits rely on research to help them see who is donating and why people are donating. In addition research is helpful in assessing what groups of people need the most amounts of help from the nonprofit, in what areas help is needed and the reasons for the help. The importance of research in nonprofits is essential in maintaining that the nonprofit is helping the community and their target audience. It was shocking to find an article that discussed that although nonprofits do research that they do not use their research. In addition the article stated that nonprofits are not collecting data that is helpful to the community. This stems from the fact that many people in nonprofit public relations do not know how to properly conduct research. One of the areas of research that can be helpful in nonprofits and that nonprofit employees need to work on is qualitative research.

Qualitative research involves collecting data on people and finding common themes and relationships between small groups of people. An example of qualitative research is a focus group. A focus group would be extremely helpful for nonprofits. They could for example organize a group of about eight to ten people (the normal size of a focus group) discussing donating to nonprofits. The focus group would be led by a moderator and later his or her notes would be transcribed and themes and relationships would hopefully emerge from the data. This research could be very helpful in finding who donates and why. It would aid nonprofits when they need help finding donors.

Thus research, especially qualitative is extremely helpful to nonprofits. It is very important that non profits learn how to research correctly and use their data to benefit their community.