Fair Trade USA Tools

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• Think about how you will administer the survey: How will you distribute it? Who will fill out the survey: the participants themselves or enumerators?

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• If you are dealing with a migrant majority workplace, take into consideration that not all individuals will be coming from the same ethnic or geographic region.

  • See the “Culture, language, and religion” section.

• Your questions might need to focus on needs participants have as individuals or in their home communities (where their families live) as opposed to where they're working.

  • Workers might have a different definition of what is a migrant. Make sure you define it accordingly.

• You might need to have different or additional questions depending on the migratory status of the individuals. If appropriate, you can have additional questions targeted to migrant workers specifically.

  • Don't be afraid to ultimately end up with different premium projects for different groups. It is possible to have a Premium plan with some projects designed specifically for migrant workers.

Ⓕ Consider adding Focus Group Discussions:

• If you have minority groups who might have special or unique needs, you might want to have FGDs just for them. Best practice for a good size FGD is about 10 participants.

Note: Geographic spread is how large the area is and how easily Premium participants can get to a centralized location to fill out a survey or for a focus group.

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• If you are thinking about conducting the Needs Assessment in-person, what is the distance between the production site(s) and your cooperative or management office? How far do participants have to travel to their production site?

  • Think about who might be excluded if they cannot travel to a certain location or cannot afford transportation. How can you include them?

• If you are thinking about conducting the needs assessment remotely, make sure to consider any technological limitations (i.e., internet access in the mountains).

  • Think about who might be excluded if the needs assessment relies on technology. How can you include them?

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• If you have long or year-round production cycles, consider breaking up the effort by doing a survey first and FGDs later, or vice versa.

  • You can also think about merging the needs assessment with existing events or trainings that you're doing with the participants. You may also want to consider adding this to the onboarding of new workers as they are hired.

Ⓕ Consider adding Focus Group Discussions:

• If you have a short harvest or production timeline. You can select highly representative focus groups to get representation with minimum logistics and administrative costs.

  • Take into consideration workforce retention year after year, as a new workforce means new needs, and you may need to re-do the Needs Assessment.

  • A Needs Assessment must capture data that reflects the needs of the communities within the scope of the certificate. Therefore, FGDs may need to be conducted in multiple places if workers are spread across a number of locations.

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• Consider if Premium Participants speak regional dialects or indigenous languages.

  • Even if populations do speak the national language, if it's not their first language you should make efforts to facilitate this process in their first or native tongue as it may affect their answers.

• If your Premium participants speak a variety of languages, evaluate your resources: Do you have interpreters? Do you have access to translation services? This will affect your Needs Assessment and results.

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• If there are cultural, linguistic, ethnic, or gender barriers that might stop participants from speaking honestly about their needs, surveys can be a valuable tool, but consider if participants can see each other's answers.

  • Think about where a survey will be filled out (for example, at home where a spouse or family can influence the answers, or at work or a community center or room without anyone watching).

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• If there are questions around sensitive topics like sexual health or money that might be considered inappropriate or awkward to answer, take into consideration any of the religious or cultural traditions of a community when asking them.

  • Consider “testing” your questions with trusted members of the community before conducting the needs assessment with everyone.

Ⓕ Consider adding Focus Group Discussions:

• If you have some groups of people who will not speak freely in the presence of other groups of people. You might need to do different FGDs to capture the different needs of the different sub-groups. For example; a group of the same gender, same cultural background, or religious group.

  • You should anticipate if there will be group discussions going on during the data collection phase that may lead to groupthink or biased answers.

  • Recognize that different people can be shy or outgoing, and without proper facilitation you can get biased answers.

  • Consider using non verbal activities where people can write or sketch answers on their own.

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• When selecting surveys, it's important to consider the ability to log the information digitally. A paper survey might take days or weeks to input digitally.

  • Who will own, organize, and administer this process?

• What technological resources are available? (workforce, people who have smartphones, if you have tablets, etc.)

• When conducting surveys, it is recommended that you try to achieve a statistical sample. If you type “Statistical Sample Calculator” in a search engine there will be free tools you can use to to calculate the minimum number of Fair Trade Premium Participants to be assessed so that the sample accurately describes the population.

  • Please use a 90% Confidence Level and 5% Margin of Error. The confidence level is the probability that your sample accurately reflects the attitudes of your population. The margin of error is the range that your population’s responses may deviate from your sample’s.

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• If you're considering asking Premium Participants to use their smartphones or cellphones, consider any data costs or connectivity restrictions they may have.

  • Is it possible to provide a smartphone or tablet if not every participant has a way to fill out the survey?

• If connectivity is low where Premium Participants are, consider having electronic resources accessible offline (like Kobo).

• If you're doing a survey on paper, take into consideration the processing time for data inputting.

  • See the “8. Data capture capacity” factor.

Ⓢ Best practices for surveys:

• It is important to consider the literacy rates of the population.

  • Words are not the only way to get responses, consider visual responses and tools.

• Consider having surveys be led by enumerators for participants who cannot read and fill them out themselves.

• Use vocabulary that the community knows, don't use technical words unfamiliar with them.

Ⓕ Consider adding Focus Group Discussions:

• If Premium Participants are not comfortable reading. FGDs allow people to talk and express themselves.

  • When selecting FGDs, consider how multiple staff members will need to maintain proper note keeping.

  • Further training on qualitative data analysis may be needed to translate FGD notes into quantitative results for the needs assessment.