Doctoral Research Project

Research Project Guidelines

The research project is designed to incorporate all of the aspects of what you have learned throughout the DMin program. You must plan a major event/outreach and clearly incorporate five (5) principles from each class. Furthermore, you must explain why you did what you did, as well as whether or not it was effective.

For instance, for marketing the event you should utilize some of the principles you learned in BUSI 701 and thoroughly explain how and why you implemented the principles.  We don’t want to merely gauge the knowledge you have obtained, but your ability to put that knowledge into action for effective ministry.

In addition, you will be required to video the event (raw data, not over produced) so that our Doctoral Consortium will be able to watch the event and get a sense of the overall effectiveness of the event.

OVERALL PROJECT GUIDELINES

This project must be a minimum of 75 pages of research and results.  Structure your paper in such a way that each major point is listed with a number and sub points are broken down by letter and number.

The project must clearly demonstrate the following nine areas:

*Purpose

*Benefits

*Customer/Target Audience

*Company/Organization

*Niche

*Tactics

*Budget

*Results

*Assessment

Some examples you will want to include, but are not limited to, are:

Event Plan:

*Type of event (Fun? Evangelistic? Relational?)

*Message you want to convey

*How event ties into the overall mission, vision, and core values of the organization

*Name of event

*Location of event

*Time parameters of event – include set up and tear down as well as the actual event time

*Need for event and benefit to constituency

*Number of people anticipated vs. the number that actually showed up

*Staffing – detail the team you have put together and the various assignments given to team members

*Staffing identification (How will people know who is working the event? – t-shirts, name badges – give examples)

*Follow up plan – how do you plan on connecting with people after the event and were you successful in doing so?

Marketing Plan:

*Target audience (Church people?  Male/female audience? etc.)

*Demographics of the people near the location of the event (Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, etc.) Is your event consistent with your demographic? (look for demographics of your specific area and include the most important demographics of your area as you see it)

*Number of people you are trying to reach

*Electronic advertisement

*Radio, TV, mailer advertisements

*Examples of promotional pieces

*When did you start advertising and what was the sequence?

Budget Plan:

*The anticipated cost of putting on the event

*Where will the money come from? (Donors? Budget organizational money? Fee for participation?)

*Did you stay within budget?  What was more or less expensive than what you anticipated? Was there any way to better forecast expenses?

Assessment:

*Was the event successful? (Get feedback on video from people in attendance via a focus group format – those videos will be required to be edited and turned in for review)

*What were the positives and what areas needed improvement?

*SWOT analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats)

NOTE: Again, this list of suggestions is not all inclusive!  It is simply meant to give you an idea about the direction you should be thinking for planning your project.  You should be as thorough as possible when submitting your information for review. The Doctoral Consortium will give a fair and honest assessment of your project and you will be graded accordingly.  The more good information they receive will result in a higher grade.  Creativity, organization, attractiveness, and neatness are a MUST!!!