PR Research Final

PresentationSarah Davis

Bailee JordanKelly McGahee

Ashleigh Townsend

Goals of the Project Our goal for this project was to gain the knowledge that

would allow us to recruit as many student volunteers as possible to aid the Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department in a variety of ways.

Through our survey and focus group, we sought to determine the relationship between demographic characteristics and one’s attitude towards volunteering.

Having a better understanding of which students are the most likely and willing to volunteer would make the task of recruiting volunteers feasible.

Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department Our study focused on the The Bulloch County Parks and

Recreation Department’s desire to obtain more volunteers from Georgia Southern University.

The main mission of the Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department is to provide quality, diversity, wholesome parks and recreation services to meet the needs of the citizens of Bulloch County.

The Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department is a public recreation department that maintains and operates eight recreation areas and the 28 buildings on these parks. Included in these parks are athletic fields, tennis courts, swimming

pools, walking trails, playgrounds and picnic pavilions.

Focus Group In early September, we conducted a focus group report

surveying a group of nine college seniors at Georgia Southern University.

All nine students were public relations majors ranging in age from 20 to 22 years old.

Our group of participants showed interest in volunteering in a variety of fields.

Across the board, all of our participants agreed that time is the biggest factor among their personal lack of volunteering.

They collectively agreed that by allowing a flexible schedule and offering academic incentives our client would see an increase in their willingness to volunteer.

Survey After completing our focus group, we distributed an online survey

via Qualtrics and was composed of a convenience sample. A total of 285 participants took the survey. From this survey, we have concluded that most of the Georgia

Southern students enjoy volunteering and see its importance. The students who took the survey were predominantly female

and most of these students are heavily involved in extracurricular activities.

Our studies show that the students on Georgia Southern’s campus would be more willing to volunteer with Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department if they knew more about the opportunities to volunteer with athletics, after school child care, and recreation.

Internal Environments

There are many benefits and advantages to students volunteering with this organization, one being, flexible volunteer hours to work around school schedules.

Secondly, they offer many different departments to volunteer in such as youth athletics, event planning, and the after school program.

Advantages

Internal Environments Our client is not utilizing the on and off campus resources.

For example, Bulloch County Recreational Department lacks a strong social media presence.

In our teams initial focus group report, the participants from the focus group stated that Twitter and Facebook posts would attract their attention.

We suggested our client get in touch with Georgia Southern University individual colleges such as CLASS. Colleges such as the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, have a strong social media presence. Working with CLASS we would ask them to post on our Clients behalf, this would attract a small percentage of the student body easily.

A lack of utilizing marketing funds. Accessing these funds to sponsor Facebook posts targeted to students at Georgia

Southern University is another way to have a greater presence amongst the student body.

In conclusion, in order to better our clients efforts, we suggest initiating a greater presence on and off campus to strengthen their number of volunteers.

Disadvantages

External Environments Due to its placement in a busy college town, Bulloch County

Recreational Department is not the only business seeking college volunteers.

Most college students have required volunteer hours, and they are attempting to complete these hours as easily and quickly as possible.

Two of the main external competitors is Georgia Southern University’s Leadership and Community Engagement Department and The Bulloch County Humane Society.

The Bulloch County Recreational Department does not have as prominent of a presence on the campus, and the students are not well informed with the compensation they could potentially receive if they volunteer.

External Environments

Another opposition to The Bulloch County Parks & Recreation Department is the Greek system.

All Greeks are required to have volunteer hours; so many organizations target the Greek system for advertising purposes.

Greeks are a major part of the student volunteering community at Georgia Southern University, but they are not well informed about the Bulloch County Recreational Department.

Results Given these results we can conclude that the audience

that we should target the most are female Georgia Southern students who are already involved in some sort of extracurricular activity.

We learned that most people prefer to volunteer for activities that are similar to what the parks and recreation department offers, which means that we should be able to gain a large number of volunteers if we target the right audience.