Strategic Plan

AAPOR Strategic Plan

AAPOR’s Strategic Planning Ad-Hoc Committee met in late February 2024 to take a deep dive into the organization, its past, and its future to develop a set of five domains, including measures of and goals for success as well as DEI principles, to lead AAPOR through the next three years. Members on this task force reviewed past and current information on the organization including membership surveys, financial reports, Executive Council minutes, and strategic planning survey data. The resulting plan is below.

Our Vision

Valid and transparent data about behaviors, attitudes and characteristics enables informed societal decision making.

Our Mission

As a diverse community of scholars and practitioners, AAPOR sets and advocates for high standards and best practices in pursuit of our vision. We encourage inclusive, interdisciplinary collaboration to fuel innovation. We champion and clearly articulate the significance of sound work in our field to ensure its value is understood widely.

Measures of Success:

    1. Increased use of AAPOR educational offerings, publications, and materials across a diverse audience.
    2. AAPOR offers a broader range of multi-disciplinary offerings from professionals across disciplines and methods.

Strategies for Success:

    1. Improve the quality, visibility, and adoption of AAPOR’s resources in various educational settings.
    2. Create clear and compelling pathways and rewards for diverse data professionals to participate in AAPOR programs.
    3. Establish programs that support professionals and help them navigate diverse professional trajectories throughout their career.
    4. Assess needs for multi-disciplinary offerings and providing educational opportunities from diverse professionals across data disciplines and methods.

Measures of Success:

    1. Start of systemic shift in making appropriate knowledge claims from data.
    2. Widespread adoption of standards and frameworks for training data/benchmark data sets.
    3. More organizations join the Transparency Initiative (TI) and more clients prioritize transparent data.

Strategies for Success:

    1. Develop resources to enable researchers to make appropriate knowledge claims from social, behavioral, and economic data.
    2. Building on the TI, engage computer science and artificial intelligence communities to develop standards and frameworks for benchmark and training data for social, behavioral, and economic indicators.
    3. Outreach to academic and scientific communities about the appropriate use of different types of social, behavioral, and economic data.

Measures of Success:

    1. Growth in the share and engagement of student members and members of underrepresented demographics
    2. A better understanding of AAPOR’s makeup, including the disciplinary range of AAPOR, withAAPOR’s work calibrated to acknowledge this range.
    3. AAPOR fosters interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers.
Strategies for Success:
    1. Position AAPOR as a place that fosters connections between potential employees and employers.
    2. Understand the work and needs of all member segments.
    3. Establishment of more communities and opportunities within AAPOR for individuals within and across methodologies and areas of practice.

Measures of Success:

    1. Increase awareness of AAPOR as a primary resource for understanding the science and practice of research in our field among the media, politicians, and the general public.
    2. Members are equipped and empowered to independently communicate about and respond to issues and developments in the field.
    3. Work of the field is more accessible and understandable to the public.

Strategies for Success:

    1. Develop a proactive and timely response mechanism to respond to critical issues in the field.
    2. Establish partnerships with similar organizations to support these efforts.
    3. Establish an ongoing dialogue with relevant leaders with influence to increase their understanding of our field and members.

Measures of Success:

    1. Leadership will regularly evaluate the engagement and financial viability of our programs and offerings.
    2. Sustainable organization that provides clear operational and strategic roles within its structure.
    3. Membership, volunteers, and leadership better reflect the landscape of professionals working in data-driven fields, with respect to sector, affiliation, career stage, and demographics.
    4. Increased revenue through meaningful development activities.

Strategies for Success:

    1. Conduct a holistic governance and program review to balance volunteer opportunities and staff responsibilities and ensure operational, financial, and strategic efficacy.
    2. Increase outreach to individuals and organizations in data-driven fields to establish mutually beneficial support for AAPOR priorities.
    3. Growth of the Development Subcommittee and investigation of new revenue streams.