Do-It-Yourself Market Research Part II:
Tracking Trends—How to Turn Your Hunches into Good Decision Making
Resource
The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution
Contents
Benefits of Continually Tracking Market Trends
Analysis Doesn't Have to Be Time-Consuming
How to Do Trend Analysis
The Trend Analysis Worksheet
Where to Learn More
From Rebecca Post, Managing Editor, Fieldstone Alliance
YOU LIKELY POSSESS an innate sense of trends that affect your nonprofit. Your gut feeling about economic factors and other conditions can be right on the mark. For example, you may suspect that poverty is increasing in your community because demand is rising at your local food shelf. However, to best serve your organization you want to evolve your hunches into legitimate market trend awareness that can inform ongoing and future strategy.
Our last Tools issue focused on how to do a competitor analysis. This issue, also from David La Piana’s latest book, The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World, will help you do trend analysis in a timely way.
Benefits of Continually Tracking Market Trends
One of the critical points La Piana makes in his book is that you must continually devote yourself to understanding your market and competitors—not just every three years as with traditional planning cycles.
“Our world demands rapid responses," asserts La Piana. "An organization that thinks and acts strategically is proactive and nimble. Awareness of trends and their impact will help you anticipate changes and make timely adjustments."
When you stay abreast of market trends you stand to gain the following:
- Better knowledge of the external environment and its impact on your nonprofit
- Greater sense of control over the situation
- Identification of trends before they are “old news”
- Improved decision making and improved strategies
In short, when you become adept at recognizing trends, you improve your decision-making abilities and you become more effective at forming effective strategies.
Analysis Doesn't Have to Be Time-Consuming
Being aware of trends doesn't necessarily require a lot of time. It's more of a mind set—always being on the lookout for information.
Here's a real-life example: a co-worker noticed the housing bubble starting to burst a good year before it was making the news. How? By walking her son to school. That's when she noticed an increase in the number of "for rent" and "for sale" signs in the neighborhood. She checked out her hunches and found an online forum of people in related businesses who knew the inside story of what was happening. It was months before what she learned from the forum started making into newspapers and trade magazines.
How to Do Trend Analysis
Research can be as simple as asking staff and board members, based on their own knowledge, to identify key market trends using the Trend Analysis Worksheet (below) as a framework. Or it may be more involved. For example, you may extend your research to a review of trusted web sites, key nonprofit sector publications, publications focused on your particular subsector, and your local newspapers.
The Trend Analysis Worksheet
A trend analysis consists of two main components: research and discussion or analysis.
To get started, La Piana suggests you ask staff and board members complete the Trend Analysis Worksheet on their own. Then set up a session to discuss the the results. The variety of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds provides the foundation for a rich discussion. The analysis of the trends helps identify any Big Questions facing the nonprofit and provides guidance in forming strategies to address them.
Following is an example as well as a blank worksheet to get you started.
Blank worksheet: [download interactive PDF version]
Where to Learn More
The following resources are but a few that can be extremely helpful:
Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest
All the Best,
Rebecca Post
Fieldstone Alliance
October 8, 2008
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