Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Unobtrusive Research

A main component of nonprofit public relations is looking at who is donating and how much they are donating. Nonprofits need to make sure they know who are their donors and make sure that they become annual donors. In order to see who is donating or why people are not donating, a nonprofit could perform unobtrusive research. Unobtrusive research is a form of secondary research, which involves no interference with the subject being studied. By analyzing past records of people and corporations who donated over a period of years, researchers could see who stable donors are. If the same people have donated the past 5 years it is likely that they will continue to donate.  It is very important to see who is an annual donor because it saves 20% of money that it would cost to find new members. An article on donators explains the importance of donators, how to increase donors and the importance of keeping existing members. By using the unobtrusive methods it will be easier to come up with an estimate of who donates annually. It is less bothersome, then calling up past donors and seeing if they will donate again. Phoning people may be seen as hassling which could lead to fewer donations. By looking at the tables of donors, one would also be able to see how much they usually donate without actually speaking to people. Once again this could be more accurate than say surveying people and seeing how much they usually donate. This is because people may not remember how much they donated or they may feel pressured to put a higher number than they actually donated. This could then lead to skewed results. Unobtrusive research could then be helpful in estimating who is consistent donors and how much they are likely to donate.

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