Points to Consider

How much will it cost? back to top

That depends on what kind of fact-gathering and how much you need to do. These days you can get a lot of information free on the Internet: published reports, news stories, poll results. And you will be surprised how generous some people are with their time if you just pick up the phone and call: experts, academics, and other advocates.
But you may incur costs for some types of information. For example:

To access some online databases, you’ll have to pay a registration fee.
Some newspapers charge a fee for archived stories online (usually $1 to $3 per article), as do libraries for archived stories in their files.
You may incur copying fees for government records sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To make sure these fees don’t exceed your budget, ask about copying fees in your FOIA request or set a limit on how much you’re willing to spend. More on this below in How Much Information Do You Need.
Copies of court records can cost as little as 10 cents a page or as much as a dollar.
Published reports can range from $5 to $25, depending on the length.
Focus groups range in price; the average is about $5,000 each.
Professional polling and surveys can cost $25,000 or more.

Do you have sufficient resources and capacity? back to top

This really comes down to who will do the fact-gathering? To answer that question, you should first answer the question, What are you trying to accomplish?

Are you trying to track down already existing information, such as policies in other places that might be models for your community or laws relevant to the change you’re pushing for? In this case, all you may need is a persistent, resourceful person with enough time to surf the Internet, make calls, track down leads, conduct informal phone interviews, and the like. For research that requires more technical expertise, try contacting a professor at a local university, public policy graduate students, law students, the local Bar Association’s pro bono panel, or a nearby research organization for assistance.
Are you gathering facts to persuade a specific audience or decision-maker? What will they consider credible? For better or worse, in some public policy discussions, scientific or methodologically sound or statistically valid research carries the greatest persuasive credibility: research conducted by a reputable academic, a think tank like the Brookings Institution, Rand Corporation, or some other independent outside organization. Undoubtedly, compelling stories, anecdotal evidence, and community surveys can have power in moving an advocacy agenda, particularly when combined with other advocacy strategies. But depending on whom you’re trying to persuade, having a professional survey organization develop, administer, and report the results of a survey may be helpful. More on surveys below in Conducting polling and community surveys.

Bringing in an outside researcher does not mean you don’t need to devote staff resources to the project. You will still need someone to supervise the researcher. The staff person chosen for this job should be someone who’s comfortable speaking up and pushing back with questions and concerns about the methodology, conclusions, and direction of the research. Someone, for example, who is confident enough to say to a researcher, “If I don’t understand it, my audience won’t,” and who will not be intimidated even if the researcher acts as if it’s all straightforward and nonnegotiable. This really is an instance where “there’s no stupid question.”

How much information do you need? back to top

You need to do enough fact-gathering to be sure you have an accurate sense of the problem; a concrete, doable solution in mind that will actually make a difference; and sufficient grasp of the subject to know which compromises to make or not make, when, for example, changing the “and” to an “or” in your proposed policy will weaken it to the extent that it’s not worth accepting.
At the same time, be careful not to fall into doing research for research’s sake. On many topics there’s an almost infinite amount of information available. At periodic intervals, take stock of what you’ve learned. Decide whether you have enough to go public and whether other information can be gathered or other research completed later (e.g., in response to opposing arguments or to evaluate a compromise).

Keys to success back to top

Don’t reinvent the wheel. It will save you a lot of time. More often than not, someone somewhere has already done some work on the issue you are working on. Track down what is already out there, assess its credibility, and tailor the information to your circumstances.

Pick up the phone and ask. Sometimes you can get what you are looking for-a report, a public document, an expert interpretation-by simply asking for it. Other times you will need to make a written request, pay a fee, or jump through other hoops. But try the straightforward, simple way first. And with public documents, keep a record of the times you called and whom you spoke with so you have a record of requests that you can later reference in a letter, if necessary.

Be persistent and don’t give up. People are busy and therefore may not return your call right away. Bureaucracies have many layers and processes; you may be redirected again and again. Stick with it and keep pursuing new avenues.

Red flags back to top

Never compromise the facts. Verify your facts; try to get at least two independent, unrelated sources; and rely on official, public records whenever possible. Your credibility depends on it.
Don’t take anything you find at face value. Read everything with a critical eye. Who wrote it? What do you know about them? What institution are they affiliated with? Whose interests do they represent? How are they funded? What groups do they work with? Is their analysis based on rhetoric or on facts and data? Scrutinize the data. What data are included? What are missing? How does that affect the analysis? Does it add up? What’s the source of the data?

Make clear up front who owns the research. If you contract with an outside research organization, may it publish its report without your permission or put its own spin on the polling data? Try to include in your research contract a provision that you control release of the information, though that isn’t always possible. If, for example, you’re unable to get a pollster to agree that it cannot release your data if you’re not happy with the results, you have to weigh the risk of undertaking the polling in the first place.