Methodology

Background:

Due to COVID-19, the larger study was scaled down to focus on the impact of COVID-19 on DeKalb County nonprofit organizations while still collecting and analyzing data on the sector overall, in the county and the state. For this version of the study, we created a new survey based on similar surveys taking place across the country. That survey was then tested by a group of local reviewers. Qualtrics was used to administer the online survey and collect responses.

Distribution List:

We generated a list of 501(c)3 and 501(c)6 nonprofit organizations in DeKalb County registered with the Internal Revenue Service. We included all faithbased organizations if they provided public services such as a daycare center. We removed private operating foundations. This resulted in a list of 152 organizations.

Timeline:

The survey was initially distributed through Qualtrics including an electronic link. This was followed up with two reminder emails through Qualtrics as well as promotion of the survey project by the DeKalb County Nonprofit Partnership to encourage additional participation.

Sept. 8, 2020 Initial email, data collection begins. Hard copies of surveys mailed. Sept. 14, 2020 First reminder email. Sept. 21, 2020 Second reminder email. Sept. 28, 2020 Survey closed, data collection ended.

Data Confidentiality:

Survey responses collected through this project are presented in aggregate to protect the confidentiality of participating organizations.

Response Rate:

From the list of 152 organizations, nine of these organizations were no longer operating or had merged with other nonprofits. Email addresses for the remaining 143 organizations were gathered; however, in 16 instances, no email address was found resulting in distribution of the survey by mail. Therefore, 127 organizations received the survey by email via Qualtrics. Of these, 54 completed the online survey and three additional surveys were returned by mail which were entered into Qualtrics manually. There were 57 total respondents, resulting in a 39.9% response rate (57/143).