Ten specific things to strengthen next presentation and responses:

• I think that we may have been guilty of elaborating on details that were not part of the questions we were asked. I think I personally thought I was helping by adding a new point to what someone said that the judges may have asked about as follow up questions, but this may have harmed more than helped.
• Perhaps just having one person answer each question
• Practicing the question round more
• We received feedback that the end game of enhanced corporate engagement was too broad. I think if we had more clearly defined this that would’ve helped. I tried to sum up different ways these relationships could play out, but it was difficult to fully explain in the time that we had.
• Use more specific examples of the ways corporate money going to nonprofits has had significant results on improving the standard of living for Indian citizens
• Have a more specific timeline
• Explain how we will address IRB
• List the specific corporations and organizations we plan to work with
• Clearly outline what we are looking for with our deliverable
• Explain more specific elements of the problem (since it is very broad) that we plan to address with our research.

IRB:

Our work will require an IRB approval because we are researching human subjects. Our faculty member has mentioned that she does not believe it will go beyond exempt status.

Because we are starting the interview process before we go to India, I think we will have an advantage with the application. We will already have some concept of effective questioning. We will need to develop a systematic approach to conducting our research, with specific objectives for the kind of information we expect to discover. I am currently involved with a marketing research class, and we are learning a lot about effective ways to gather research on human subjects. There are many techniques that can be implemented to have a more effective interview. I think we may have some trouble with the phone interviews because it can be difficult to convey your interest so that the interviewee continues to elaborate without facial cues. In practicing interviews in that class, I’ve found it easy to make the interviewee comfortable because we have a lot in common, but this step may prove to be more difficult when we have less in common with our subjects that I had with my classmates.

I do not believe we will have to adjust our interview process based on a language barrier because English is widely used in corporate India. However, I do think that it is important that we double check to make sure that there is no confusion with meaning or different ways of expression because Indian English is largely based on British English.

One element of the IRB presentation that stuck out to me that I think we will have to keep in mind is clarifying privacy of the information we discuss. It may adjust how apprehensive interviewees are to elaborating on their experiences with us. We will also have to consult the International Research Appendix before sending our application to make sure we have addressed any extra elements. We will also make sure to include our interview questions and other aspects of our interview process we can outline.

Logic Model

The primary inputs into our project that we are concerned with are planning and research. We must ensure that these are thorough so that we have the most effective conversations with organizations that we can and to make sure that we don’t waste anyone’s time. Additional inputs include funding, scheduling, and planning what we want to provide at our interviews such as snacks or tea.

The measurable output we plan to gather is organized information. We are hoping to reach a variety of subjects from different types of nonprofits and corporations in search of similarities that can be broadly applied. We will compare similarities between our subjects to see if there are similarities between positives and negatives that these organizations are encountering. Then we will create a rubric to rate corporations and nonprofits on as well as a guide for how to enhance relationships between corporations and nonprofits. This will be done in the form of a template or digital pamphlet along with potentially a video or a website.

The outcome that we hope will happen as a result of this work is an increased dialogue about how to make meaningful results out of India’s CSR law and hopefully make a difference in the effectiveness of these nonprofits.