Qualitative research can be a powerful tool both to help you understand your key audiences, and to help you communicate better about the work that your organisation does. More than just ‘adding life’ to quantitative data, qual can be used at any number of points along your research journey to help understand behaviours and get a deeper understanding of the ways that people engage with your charity.

In his book, Doing Qualitative Research, Silverman writes “no method of research, quantitative or qualitative, is intrinsically better than any other”[fn]Silverman, D., 2000. Doing Qualitative Research. Sage Publications Ltd.[/fn]. However, there may be a perception that quantitative research is ‘better’, because it is ‘bigger’; it is based on ‘bigger’ samples which is better than the smaller samples upon which qualitative research is based.

While there are still significant numbers of people lacking access to the internet (some estimates suggest as many as 10 million[fn]The Guardian, 12 July 2010. The data which shows the digital divide. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jul/12/digital-dividemartha....[/fn]), it is now widely accepted that it has become an integral part of daily life and that many people want to ‘have their say’.

Last week (w/c 1st March 2010) the London Evening Standard ran a series of stories called ‘the Dispossessed’, highlighting the almost unfathomable gulf that exists between the wealthiest and poorest of London’s residents.  I wouldn’t typically hold the paper up as a paragon of journalistic or literary excellence. However, reader responses to the Standard’s campaign last week highlighted some important messages for charities to sit up and take notice of.

nfpSynergy is regularly commissioned to conduct communications research for a wide range of our not for profit or public sector clients, and often directly by a creative agency working for a charity. We have seen many times how valuable it can be in helping a campaign to fulfil its potential and ultimately help an organisation to meet its objectives.

Not for profit think-tank nfpSynergy has teamed up with The ImpACT Coalition to produce a free, short, practical report and guide that will empower charities to formulate and communicate simple messages, including pithy pub facts, needed to dispel a range of debilitating misperceptions their stakeholders may have, both about themselves and the wider third sector.