Saying traditional public outreach continues to present challenges, Metro staff announced a new Internet-based public outreach effort on Thursday.
The effort ambitiously hopes to have 10,000 Portland region residents sign up in 2011 for the Opt In panel, which will be run by DHM Research, a Portland research firm.
"It's just getting more problematic and costly to do valid and statistically reliable opinion research," said Adam Davis, one of DHM's partners. "We can't keep people on the telephone as long as we're used to. It's getting more difficult to get the in-depth information not only to really understand how they're feeling about things, but why they're feeling that way."
The idea has been in development for about a year, Metro communications director Jim Middaugh said. He said Metro was asking focus group participants questions in advance of last year's launch of the Community Investment Strategy.
"We asked how can we engage you?" Middaugh said. "We heard from a bunch of people: Do it online."
The panel cost about $25,000 to get set up, Middaugh said, with statistically valid surveys costing about $10,000 each once the panel is established. By comparison, a statistically valid telephone survey costs at least $20,000.
Metro is also partnering with the Northwest Health Foundation, United Way of the Columbia-Willamette and the Portland State University College of Urban and Public Affairs to reach out to underserved populations that Portland's regional government traditionally struggles to engage, Middaugh said.
Participants in Opt In will get a few reminders a month to check the site and see if Metro or its partners have new surveys to take. Because Davis' firm will know the demographic information of participants – it won't be stored on Metro computers, so personal data won't be public record – the firm will be able to report how representative of the Portland region each survey is.
"We may see that we're not doing too well in this particular area, or with this particular demographic group," Davis said. Metro and Davis' firm will know they've "got to work with partners to bump up the membership in those particular areas."
But Councilor Carl Hosticka said he had a concern for one demographic the panel would never get – people who don't use the Internet.
Middaugh said the goal of the project is to be an accountable outreach method – if a questionnaire doesn't churn out a statistically valid demographic, the agency will know. Traditional outreach efforts, like phone surveys, could still be used if the Opt In doesn't do its job on a particular topic.
Councilor Shirley Craddick asked whether Opt In will be in other languages.
"We're taking baby steps here," Davis said. "We want to get this launched, and absolutely, we're already looking at having a Spanish version of this. It's something we're looking at and we're very sensitive to it."
The initial demographic survey takes about five minutes to complete.