Introduction
The sections below outline the key methodological characteristics of each major research activity undertaken as part of this project. Sufficient detail is provided to allow the reader to understand the strengths and limits of the data that result from this work. The full reports that will follow the release of this paper will provide further methodological details.
Individual and Household Survey
This survey was designed primarily to collect data on:
- the giving of money and of time (volunteering) by adult Australians, especially the levels of giving and the destinations of those gifts
- people’s reasons for giving money or for not giving money
- people’s experience of different forms of fundraising and their attitudes towards these
- demographic characteristics of respondents, including their affiliations that are relevant to giving
- the impact of government policy designed to encourage monetary giving, such as tax deductions for gifts.
The survey was designed with a view to ensuring comparability with earlier research, though the method of administration (by computer aided telephone interviewing) and the period of recall (one year) meant that in some important respects the survey differed from a 1997 survey of giving by the ABS which used face to face interviews and a three month period of recall for most data.
In order to explore people’s reasons for giving, each respondent who reported giving to at least one organisation during the preceding twelve months was asked a series of questions about one particular gift.
Data collection was undertaken from February to March 2005. It is relevant to note that the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, and the associated media coverage and appeals by overseas development nonprofit organisations, and the generous response by many individuals and businesses, gave extraordinary prominence to, and positive endorsement for charitable giving. This created two problems for the survey. It meant that the huge one-off outpouring of giving (estimated in March 2005 by the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) at $300 million) would lift the level of giving for the preceding twelve months above the underlying or structural level. As well, the positive endorsement of giving might encourage a more accurate recall, but it might also lead some respondents to invent or to exaggerate their level of giving.
In an attempt to address the first problem the questionnaire was altered slightly. The Tsunami appeal was mentioned in the introductory remarks and respondents were told that they would be later asked about their response to that, but for the moment they were asked to think about their non-Tsunami giving over the previous twelve months. However, it is nonetheless possible that some respondents may have exaggerated the level of their giving due to their response to the Tsunami appeals (a ‘halo effect’).
Contact was made with a random sample of households, where one-third was selected from high-income census collection districts to ensure that high-income earning households were well represented in the sample. A total of 6,209 interviews were completed. This represented a useable response rate of 40%, which is considered satisfactory for such surveys. Interviews took an average of just under 20 minutes to complete. Useable responses were then weighted by age, gender and educational attainment to represent the whole population, giving a sample of 15,398. This was just under 0.1% of the adult population.
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Survey of Business
This survey was designed to quantify the extent of giving by business. In particular questions were designed to:
- assess the overall value of giving in terms of money, goods and services (‘what’ businesses give)
- assess the overall value of giving through donations, sponsorships and community business projects (‘how’ businesses give)
- identify factors such as differences between the industry in which businesses are based and the size of businesses and their giving
- identify to whom businesses give within the nonprofit sector
- identify barriers to giving and the efficacy of ways in which nonprofit organisations approach businesses to give
- identify awareness of tax related giving measures.
A postal survey was developed for this purpose, with follow up calls made to enhance response rates.
A total of 2,705 surveys were completed by businesses, representing a 37% response rate from those sampled.
Data from the survey was weighted to take into account a number of factors. An analysis of late responses was undertaken. This involved a study of completed surveys from late respondent businesses compared with earlier responses, allowing for a check, for example, to see if earlier respondents were more generous givers. In addition active calls were made to non-responding businesses to collect a few key data to also compare with responding businesses.
Data was also weighted by comparing the proportions of small and larger business, businesses by industry sectors and across jurisdictions (State/Territories) against ABS business data for these characteristics. These comparisons allowed for a weighting of data arising from the survey.
While all prudent and rigorous measures have been employed to ensure rigorous data from this survey, some qualifications must be made for readers tempted to make direct comparisons with the only other survey undertaken of giving by Australian business, that of the ABS (2002b) for the 2000-01 financial year.
Some businesses have reported that over recent years their accounting procedures and practices have improved in ways that allow for a more accurate reporting of their giving. This may have introduced more accurate, but less comparable, information on business giving between these two key sources.
As noted in relation to the Individual and Household Survey, a ‘halo effect’ of the Tsunami appeals just prior to the conduct of the survey is likely to have had an influence —businesses proud of their recent contributions may have been prone to exaggerate or wrongly count this as part of non-Tsunami giving. While the survey instrument specifically asked that respondents separate these forms of giving, this may not have taken place in some instances.
There are a number of methodological issues to note regarding this, in comparison with the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000-01 Business Generosity Survey (ABS, 2002b). Importantly, the ABS had access to a sample drawn from a near complete array of Australian businesses. The sample relied upon for this survey was broadly representative, but not the same and necessarily less complete. In addition, while the ABS is able to compel business to complete its surveys, this study could not.
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Survey of Nonprofit Organisations
The purpose of this survey was to collect data on the activities undertaken by nonprofit organisations to strengthen their capacity through securing donations, engaging volunteers and working with businesses or undertaking commercial ventures. In particular the survey included questions that:
- provided data on key characteristics of nonprofit agencies completing the survey (field of activities, size, location and span of activities)
- asked what, if any, activities were undertaken, what resources were applied in undertaking these activities, what supports or resources were thought useful in increasing such efforts and reasons for not undertaking these activities, if this was the case
- spanned key resource generating activities and their usefulness, included fundraising, volunteers, business partnerships and commercial ventures.
Three main data sets of nonprofit organisations were used for the distribution of the survey. These included:
- State-based fundraising registers: a data set of 987 nonprofit organisations was randomly sampled, at one in four using a random numbers table, from the six State Government Registers of charities. There were a total of 3,992 nonprofit organisations on these registers. Of those sampled, 252 completed responses, representing a response rate of 25.5%.
- Fundraising Institute – Australia (FIA) membership data set: a data set comprising 552 nonprofit member organisations of the FIA. These organisations are generally larger organisations that utilise a number of resource generating methods. A total of 17% of these agencies completed the survey.
- Web hosting: the survey was hosted on the ACOSS web site and links to this were distributed through a range of peak bodies across the nonprofit sector, representing organisations across different fields of activity.
Importantly no comprehensive data source exists in Australia of nonprofit organisations. Without such a rigorous sample frame it is not possible to quantify or extrapolate the results of this survey to claim representativeness of the entire nonprofit sector. Effort was taken to ensure that a range of nonprofit organisations completed the survey. In terms of organisational size, sector field of activity or industry and geographical distribution, the responses are diverse and suggest the survey base is broadly comparable with the nonprofit sector.
Qualitative Research
This component involved the conduct of 34 focus groups and 38 in-depth interviews. Generally these were discussions that were not directed by researchers beyond providing a broad indication of interest in hearing participants’ experiences as givers or recipients. Some prompting was provided once open-ended discussions were held, and these provided a non-directed trigger for discussion of issues generally of relevance to this research (eg motivations for giving, ways approached etc.) that may not have been covered in the discussions to that point.
Focus groups and in-depth interviews were undertaken in the following locations and among the following participants:
- thirteen focus groups among ‘everyday’ individual donors, three among wealthy donors, two among people from large businesses, six among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), four from among foundations and six among non-profit organisational personnel
- eight focus groups were held in Brisbane, five in Sydney, four in Melbourne, three each in Perth, Dubbo and Toowoomba and two groups each in Adelaide, Hobart, and Bendigo and single groups were held in Darwin and Canberra.
In-depth interviews were held in the following locations and among the following groups of participants:
- seven with wealthy individual donors, fourteen interviews with small and medium enterprises (SMEs), four with large business personnel, six with foundations and seven with non-profit organisations
- ten in-depth interviews were held in Perth, seven in the Gold Coast, five each in Sydney and Melbourne, four in Bendigo, two in Adelaide and one each in Hobart, Darwin, Brisbane, Dubbo and Bega.
In addition, the following focus groups and a small number of in-depth interviews have been undertaken, and the findings from these will be included in a separate full report of qualitative research. These activities include a focus on:
- the capacity-building challenges of very small ‘grass-roots’ nonprofit organisations
- the challenges for nonprofit organisations in attracting bequests
- perspectives on indigenous philanthropy
- senior executive perspectives on corporate giving.
The final stage of qualitative work has been the hosting of seven expert panels from among fundraisers, business personnel and others. These panels were used to examine/refine the themes and suggestions from the data.