Chapter THREE - Methodology

Chapter Three

The primary goal of this research is to understand how the organizational climate of a nonprofit organization can influence a fundraiser’s ability to secure funding for the nonprofit organization.  The methodology will be an exploratory study of the lived experiences of fundraisers and their perceptions regarding how the organization’s climate has impacted their ability to secure funding.  Since there is little in the literature about the actual experience of being a fundraiser, this research will contribute to the research on nonprofit organizational effectiveness. 

A social constructionist worldview that seeks understanding, social and historical construction, multiple participants and theory generation may help to determine if the organizational climate of any nonprofit organization will enhance or deter the ability of its fundraisers to function most effectively.  If the fundraiser resides in an environment with less than an ideal climate, the ability to create and maintain an effective relationship (secure funding) will be hindered.  Social constructivists do hold some assumptions.  Individuals create meaning for their experiences.  Individuals seek to make sense of the world in which they live and work. 

Nonprofit Funders are individuals who create meaning based on their experience with the Nonprofit Organization and the Nonprofit Fundraiser.  Nonprofit Fundraisers are individuals who create meaning based on their experiences with the Nonprofit Funders and the Nonprofit Organization.  The Nonprofit Funder and the Nonprofit Organization are the primary relationships for this study.  In particular how this relationship impacts the Nonprofit Fundraiser and Nonprofit Funder relationship.

Social constructionists rely on the participant’s perception of the situation.  The focus of this research is to understand the nonprofit fundraiser’s perception of the organizational climate within the nonprofit organization.  Both survey data and phenomenological interviews will contribute to having the participants create meaning from their experiences.  Meaning is negotiated from social and historical interactions of the participants.  It is not imprinted on them.  Meaning is interpreted through the interaction of people (social) and through the history the participant brings to the situation.  This history can be both personal (what they bring to the organization) and organizational (their time with the organization). 

Social Constructivist Worldview	This Research
Understanding	Impact of Organizational Climate
Multiple Participant meanings	Fundraisers’ lived experiences
Social & Historical Contribution	Personal and Organizational
Theory generation	Finding the meaning

Social constructionists tend to bring themselves into the research.  Their social and historical experiences influence their interpretations.  They want to understand the meaning others share about the world.  Theory is developed as a result of the meaning. 

Qualitative Design Approach with Supporting Survey Data

The primary goal of this research will be to understand any relationship that may exist between organizational climate and an organizational member’s role in funding acquisition.  A exploratory study has been chosen for this research.  This strategy of inquiry was chosen because the research will study the individual’s lived experience through documenting their stories in a survey format.  This qualitative approach would be considered intermediate by Edmondson and McManus (2007).  They define intermediate as (a) proposing new relationships between new and established constructs (organizational climate and fundraiser success), (b) exploratory testing of new propositions (organizational climate and organizational funding), and (c) provisional theory – often one that integrates previously separate bodies of work (organizational climate, fundraising success and nonprofit funding) (p.1160). 

Survey data will be solicited from target subjects. The survey items will focus on their perceptions about the current organizational climate of their organizations. Various demographic variables will also be measured and subjects invited to share their lived experiences as a fundraiser in their organization.  Random participants will be selected to participate in an interview process to further enhance their written stories.

Role of the Researcher

Some of the subjects will be known fundraising colleagues through networking and conference attendance. The impact of researcher bias is being considered and analyses processes are designed to minimize the effects of this bias. The researcher is a nonprofit fundraiser.  In chapter one some real life examples were given to demonstrate the importance of organizational climate and funding acquisition.  These are my stories.  The researcher believes this to be true more often than not in many nonprofit organizations.  It would be delightful to find otherwise.   

Target Participants and Sampling Plan

Nonprofit fundraisers are defined as individuals, described as full-time employees of a nonprofit organization, hired to do fundraising in support of programs and services provided by a nonprofit organization.  Size and type of nonprofit will not be considered.  For those nonprofits with several team members in the advancement department, each member will be asked to participate. 

From my network, 255 individuals are known to participate in either the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Greater Wichita Chapter or the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Mid-America Chapter.  “The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is the professional association of individuals and organizations that generate philanthropic support for a wide variety of charitable institutions.  Founded in 1960, AFP advances philanthropy through its 30,000 members in 207 chapters throughout the world” (www.afpnet.org).

These groups consist of professional fundraising staff, faculty, consultants and other individuals interested in fundraising.  A diverse group of nonprofits are represented.  The plan is to invite the members of both of these groups to participate.  This study will focus on those in these groups that are full-time employed fundraisers by their respected organizations.  These groups represent less than 1% of the overall AFP membership. Approximately 21 of these individuals are personally known by the researcher.

Data Collection Strategy

Data collection will involve a two-step process.  First, an electronic invitation will solicit their participation in a survey on fundraising and invite them to participate in a follow-up phone interview.  Individuals who are a part of the two selected AFP Chapters will receive an email communication inviting them to participate in an online survey.  This first email will ask them to identify whether they are described as a full-time employee hired to fundraise for their organization and provide informed consent for the research process.  Once participant has agreed, a second email will be sent with a link to the online survey.  The online survey will be created using Goggle® Drive (formerly Google Docs).  This survey tool allows for unlimited questions and responses.  This site also provides reports based on input from the participants.  The site is easy to navigate for participants.  The tracking process is accomplished anonymously for the participants.  The original list contains the participants’ contact information.  Once the survey link is sent, the participants are tracked as anonymous.  The researcher is not informed whether the participants completed the survey or not.  Following the second email, providing the link, a third email will be sent ten days later to remind the participants to complete the survey.  This third email reminder will be sent to all participants requesting them to complete the survey.  If they have already dome so they can ignore the email 

Questionnaire Description

The questionnaire will consist of three sections.  Section One will ask some demographic information about their length of time with their current organization, gender, education, etc.  Section Two will have questions about their perception of Organizational Climate using a Likert type scale.  Section Three will have open-ended questions about their fundraising success or failure due to the interactions of organizational leadership and non-fundraising staff with nonprofit funders.  The questionnaire will provide an explanation of terms, such as organizational leader, that may be unfamiliar terms to the participant.

The questionnaire was created using three existing surveys as a model. The Personal Leadership Questionnaire as developed at Tarleton State University of Texas.  The Leadership Assessment Personal Satisfaction Survey as developed at the Learning Center by Dr. Arky Ciancutti (2011).  The Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument as developed by Cameron and Quinn (2000) and downloaded from the Illinois State University website (http://my.ilstu.edu/~llipper/com435/survey_ocai_culture.pdf).  Permission was obtained by Dr. Cameron to use the OCAI to conduct this research.  “Dr. Cameron grants you permission to use the OCAI, and your variation on the instrument, free of charge” (Mecham Smith, 2012). 

The survey instrument was submitted to fellow colleagues who have experience in the organizational development field.  Feedback was incorporated into the instrument.  The instrument was validated as capturing organizational climate within the particular organization of the fundraiser.  The survey instrument was also provided to other colleagues to test its functionality and layout.  Feedback was incorporated to make changes in the answer choices and which answer would default.  A “select a rating” option was added to make sure the participant understood they were to rate the statement. 

Question structure was developed by the researcher based on questions in the featured resources.  No direct questions were quoted from either of the instruments.  Some of the questions were used to form the structure of the questions asked in this survey.  The questions also focus on the concept of fundraising.  Since organizational climate is a construct based on perception, I wanted to capture the perception of the fundraising professional about their organization’s climate. 

Interview Process

Using an exploratory survey process, two specific fundraiser experiences will be explored:

1. Describe an experience where a funding opportunity was lost considering conditions within your organization and/or a donor’s experience with your organization separate from your relationship.

2. Describe an experience where you were successful in securing a donation considering conditions within your organization and/or a donor’s experience with your organization separate from your relationship.

The result of the exploratory study process is a picture of the lived experiences of the nonprofit fundraisers and the impact of the organizational climate on their success.  In the qualitative approach, the benefits for this research are discovering the lived experiences of the individuals involved.  The stories of how the organizational climate of the nonprofit organization impacted the ability of the nonprofit fundraiser to secure or lose nonprofit funding.  The only envisioned downside for this research is do we really want to know the answer? 

Human Subject Considerations

According to Frankel and Siang (1999) there are three principles for protecting human subjects: autonomy, beneficence, and justice. 

“The first principle, autonomy, requires that subjects be treated with respect as autonomous agents and affirms that those persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to special protection.  The second principle, beneficence, involves maximizing possible benefits and good for the subject, while minimizing the amount of possible harm and risks resulting from the research.  The last principle, justice, seeks a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits associated with research, so that certain individuals or groups do not bear disproportionate risks while others reap the benefits” (pg 2).

To address the first principle of autonomy, all participants will be treated as autonomous agents.  There will be special attention given to make sure that all participants are treated equally and have equal access to participating in the study. Personal tracking information will only be used to increase the number of respondents to the survey.  This personal tracking information will be used to follow-up with respondents that are selected and agree to be interviewed.  Following data collection, all personal information will be detached from the data and identity codes will be maintained under lock and key to protect the individuals.

“Benefits can be defined as gain to society or science through contribution to the knowledge base, gain to the individual through improved well being, or empowerment of the individual by giving him or her a voice” (Frankel, et al., 1999, pg 3).  A benefit of participating in this research will be the opportunity to contribute to the knowledge base and empowerment of the individual. 

An identified burden of this research is the time it will take to complete the survey as well as participate in a possible follow-up interview.  Another burden may be the emotional aspect of telling the stories of organizational climate impacting the fundraiser negatively.  The balance between the benefits and the burdens are fairly equal. As an incentive for participation, Participants will also be placed in a drawing to receive a gift card of a yet to be determined value which should help offset the burden of the time invested in completing the survey.

As potential subjects are all adults and not part of a protected class of individuals, this research poses only a minimal risk and qualifies to be considered Exempt research. “(M)inimal risk exists when the probability and magnitude of harm or discomfort anticipated in the research are not greater than those ordinarily encountered in daily life or during performance of routine physical or psychological examinations or tests” (IRB Guidelines Ch III, 1993). 

Another area of concern may be confidentiality.  “Confidentiality is necessary when personal identifiers such as name, birth date, telephone number, photograph, email address or mailing/street address are collected” (Society for Science, NA).  The email addresses and names will come from membership roles of the two identified AFP chapters.  This information will be used to send the survey to the participants.  Participants that elect to participate will be contacted for follow-up interviews.  The follow-up interviews will allow for a more dynamic telling of the stories documented in the survey instrument.  Once the phone interviews are completed personal information will not be carried forward with the data.  Any identifying information will be maintained under lock and key in my home office for a period of five (5) years.

Proposed Analysis

The responses from Section Two, the questions about organizational climate, will give a good reflection of how the fundraiser perceives the organizational climate.  Questions also solicit information of how they feel about being a part of their organization; whether they feel appreciated; and whether they have clear expectations and feel committed to the organization.  Perceptions of organizational leadership’s and member’s role in funding acquisition will also be obtained.  Individual responses will be presented using frequency distributions and select measures of dispersion and central tendency.

The open-ended questions in section three require some reflection by the fundraisers.  “The initial step in qualitative analysis is reading” (Maxwell, 2004, pg 96). As I review the open-ended questions, I will organize the data along concepts such as significant statements, meaning units or an essence description.  The method of the qualitative research is inductive.  The researcher creates meaning from the collected data.  In social constructionist approaches, “the inquirer works more from the “bottom” up, using the participants’ views to build broader themes and generate a theory interconnecting the themes” (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007, p23). 

The responses to Section Three of the questionnaire are the primary focus of this research.  I will seek to allow the open-ended answers to reflect themes or groupings.  These themes or groupings will create an initial coding definition.  “(T)he goal of coding

is not to count things, but to fracture” (Strauss, 1987, p.29) the data and rearrange them into categories that facilitate comparison between things in the same category” (Maxwell, 2004, pg 96).  Codes or groupings discovered during the reading of the data will be checked for drifting.

Follow-up interview transcripts will be using the Section Three questions of the survey instrument.  The phone interviews will be tape-recorded following consent of the subjects.  It is estimated the phone interview process will take approximately 30 minutes.