How students from the University of Auckland with the help of industry professionals helped a not-for-profit organization.
How can collaboration between a tertiary education institution, the market research industry and a community nonprofit allow the next generation of insights professionals to make a positive contribution? The University of Auckland Business School Advanced Marketing Research program does just that, simultaneously providing a learning experience for the students and an opportunity to generate new insights for the client, which most recently was community organization, Housing Foundation New Zealand.
This organization is a social enterprise that operates as a charitable trust, committed to relieving poverty by providing or assisting the provision of social and affordable housing for low-income persons and households. With housing costs rising faster than incomes for many groups of people in the region, the goal of the Housing Foundation is to assist low-income households to achieve their aspiration of living independently, affordably and sustainably in a stable home environment in a community setting.
During the program, teams of students were mentored by research professionals as they were tasked with designing unique questionnaires based on a client brief, analyzing the data collected and presenting the findings. The Housing Foundation reports that insights from each team of students have contributed significantly to its future plans.
The Nonprofit’s Challenge
In combination with a number of other initiatives, Housing Foundation conducted research in 2018 to investigate awareness and perceptions of the organization, and demand for Housing Foundation products/services. They wanted to continue this research in 2019 by further investigating the levels of housing demand in New Zealand and to identify any opportunities to build its brand and advance the services it offers. The Housing Foundation was particularly interested in increasing awareness, improving product attractiveness and considering different channels for communicating with potential clients. This is where this unique program came in to help.
The Research Industry’s Contribution
In order to help the Housing Foundation uncover important insights through this student project, the industry came together:
- Sampling and online fieldwork was provided by Dynata.
- Data processing and analysis software, including training and support, was provided by Infotools and its Harmoni platform.
- Each of the 10 teams of students was mentored by one or two of 19 research industry professionals from 10 different organizations.
Mentors met in-person with students on three occasions throughout the process to provide practical guidance. Each mentor provided a report of their group at the end of the project which, along with peer evaluations, contributed to the grades attributed to individual group members.
Mentors did not provide advice on grading criteria, questionnaire writing or analysis. Students were able to bounce questionnaire design ideas off their mentors who responded with general advice about questionnaires, report writing and presentations.
The Students’ Project
The assignment duration was 13 weeks, beginning early in the academic year with the client briefing, attended by all stakeholders – the client, the students, the industry partners (Dynata and Infotools) and the professional mentors. Students then received mentoring input from on questionnaire design, and after approval, the survey went to field. During this time, students were introduced to the Harmoni platform by Infotools, practising data analysis and then focusing on the planned analysis of the new data that was being collected.
Once the fieldwork was completed by Dynata, the data was prepared and loaded into Harmoni. After workshops and training, each student was able to use the platform for team-based analysis and reporting. At completion, students presented their work to the client, teachers, mentors and fellow students where each presentation was assessed by the teachers and the industry mentors. The top three teams went on to present the following week at the annual University of Auckland Market Research Day at which a winner was announced.
The findings and results
While the findings were quite comprehensive, just a few highlights include:
- Overall awareness and mission awareness of the Housing Foundation is very low, even among its target audiences
- Target families don’t understand how the program works and see it as “too good to be true”
- Trust can be built by establishing the bona fide credentials of the Housing Foundation, developing a stronger brand identity and embracing social media for message proliferation
Paul Gilberd of the Housing Foundation, in summing up his reaction to the students’ work, commented that there was at least one immediately usable insight from each of the presentations. Because many themes were common across the presentations, it reinforced the robustness of the work and the high value of the collaboration. At the time of writing, the Housing Foundation was in the process of implementing the findings – making changes to its communication messaging and channels.
Through this unique partnership, the nonprofit organization wasn’t the only one to benefit. Members of the market research industry were able to give the next generation of researchers a peek into a “day in the life” of a researcher and show them some on-the-ground tools and techniques. The students were able to gain valuable work experience, become deeply engaged in the subject with a taste of real-world insights generation whilst making a contribution to the greater good in society. Said one student, “The fact that it was a real-world client with an important mission made the research project more than just an assignment.” Mission accomplished!
