Community research: assess needs and evaluate results
"Freedom is just chaos with better lighting" - Alan Dean Foster To the Vanishing Point
If you are involved in leading community organisations it probably won't be long before you need to use some basic research skills to assess needs or evaluate results. Some basic research know-how is also often a useful part of advocacy and working for social change.
Research at its best is about finding out, learning and doing better. This kind of research is too important to be left to academics - we all need get our hands dirty. The resources in this guide have been collected to help point you in the right direction.
Suggested starting points:
Your help in further developing this Community Research Guide is essential. Whether its 'old favourites' or 'new finds', please email useful websites, resources, case studies or news to research@community.net.nz
Community Research Guide Editor, Garth Nowland-Foreman, is a community consultant who has worked with non-profit and voluntary organisations and those who fund them for more than 25 years. He also teaches in the Unitec Graduate Diploma in Not for Profit Management and 'Managing to Make a Difference' short courses, and has a particular interest in influencing change, organisational learning and development.
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The Community and Voluntary Sector Research Forum is a great place to hear summaries of new and forthcoming research. Meeting quarterly in Wellington are people from community and voluntary organisations, government and universities, who are seeking to increase the pool of information on the sector by undertaking relevant research-related projects or promoting research.
Date added: 24 November 2006
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Date added: 18 December 2008
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New research revealing that volunteers make up an impressive two-thirds of the workforce in the non-profit sector has been welcomed by the Minister for Community and Voluntary Sector, the Hon Ruth Dyson.
Date added: 5 September 2008
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This section provides a number of key guides on methods for doing your own evaluation and research. The focus is on understanding your approach, choosing appropriate methods and how to put them into practice, especially in non-profit and voluntary organisations.
Date updated: 13 December 2006
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The purpose of the maps is to reveal the socioeconomic landscape generated by the New Zealand Index of Deprivation 2006 (NZDep2006).
Date updated: 10 December 2008
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Here are some tools and tips you can use in sampling, collecting information, response rates and, analysing data, etc.
Date updated: 19 September 2008
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To supports its advocacy and educational role, Philanthropy NZ has sponsored ground-breaking research to uncover where the money comes from for non-profits in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Date updated: 2 April 2008
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Hungrykids.info is/was a very useful website sharing the results of research on children, food and poverty in Wellington primary school students.
Date updated: 28 March 2008
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The dual role of Trade Aid as a development organisation with educational objectives, and as an organisation engaged in commercial activities with trading activities, had always provided a creative tension.
During a time of structural change, the organisation decided to embark on a Social Audit, as a way of ensuring social objectives received just as much attention as commercial ones.
Date updated: 31 January 2007
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If you should ever not have enough emails in your inbox, the American Evaluation Society (AES) has collated a list of links to more than 30 email discussion groups on evaluation at http://www.eval.org/Resources/Listservs.asp.
Date updated: 17 January 2007
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The US-based Association for Research on Non-profit Organisations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) has an electronic discussion list called ARNOVA-L.
Date updated: 13 February 2005
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US-based CharityChannel sponsors an amazing number of non-profit electronic discussion forums which aim to bring together non-profit sector practitioners and academic researchers to learn from each other.
Date updated: 14 August 2005
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A professional organisation for people involved in evaluation. There are regional groups across Australasia, including in Auckland and Wellington. Membership benefits include 'Evaluation Journal of ...
Date added: 15 December 2004
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ANZTSR is a network of people interested in pursuing or encouraging research into the Third Sector in Australia and New Zealand. Membership benefits include: quarterly newsletter, biennial conference, membership directory, 'Third Sector Review' ...
Date added: 15 December 2004
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CACOM is based in the University of Technology Sydney and was established in 1990. It provides training and undertakes and disseminates research on the Australian community sector and its management. It also operates the Asian Third Sector ...
Date added: 15 December 2004
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