News

Walsh College & Gongos Research Partner to Provide Focus: Hope with Strategic Business Data

TROY, MICHIGAN, APRIL 24, 2008 – Walsh College and Gongos Research today announced that they will partner with FOCUS: Hope, a nationally recognized civil and human rights organization in Detroit, to create a survey that generates research about the group’s business and marketing operations.

“We believe that using collaborative means to apply business principles and marketing management research will enable FOCUS: Hope to increase its funding potential and have an impact on people in need,” Walsh College President Stephanie W. Bergeron said.

Walsh College and Gongos Research, a custom marketing research company based in Auburn Hills, announced the venture at the third annual Troy Chamber of Commerce Nonprofit Management Conference hosted at the Walsh Troy campus. The conference is a day of training for southeast Michigan nonprofit organizations that are members of the Troy Chamber of Commerce.

With assistance from Gongos Research, Michael P. Levens, Ph.D., Walsh College assistant professor of marketing, will analyze and interpret the survey results and provide recommendations to FOCUS: Hope by the end of June.

“From a marketing perspective, we’d like to present FOCUS: Hope with data on how the community perceives them, and why people donate to them,” he said. “We want to provide insight into their brand, their reach, and how effectively they use and position themselves in the community.”

Dr. Levens will design a questionnaire that Gongos Research will host on its proprietary online platform called Consumer Village. This customized community of respondents is a growing population of more than 11,000 active participants nationwide.

Blending the idea of online social networking to gain deep qualitative insights with the confidence that comes from doing large-scale quantitative research, Consumer Village is a powerful research tool also used by Gongos Research’s Fortune 500 clients.

“Recognizing our fortune as a growth company here in Michigan, we wanted to be able to give something back to our community,” Gongos Research President John Gongos said. “Our partnership with Walsh College, on behalf of FOCUS: Hope, is a wonderful example of this philosophy in action.”

FOCUS:Hope was co-founded in 1968 by Eleanor Josaitis and the late Rev. William T. Cunningham, who wanted to make a difference after the 1967 riot divided Detroit along racial lines. The group’s mission is to use intelligent and practical action to fight racism, poverty, and injustice.

Gongos Research has worked with such leading companies as Best Buy, Hallmark Cards, Nestlé Purina, Domino’s Pizza, US Bank, GM, OnStar, and Polaris, since 1991. The company was recently named to Inc. 5000’s list of “The Fastest Growing Companies in America.”

Founded in 1922, Walsh College is Michigan’s largest graduate business school. The College offers upper-division undergraduate and graduate business and technology degree and certificate programs to 4,600 students at campuses in Troy, Novi, and Clinton Township, as well as online.

CONTACTS:

Donna Mirabito, Public Relations Coordinator, Walsh College, 248-823-1279

Susan Scarlet, Marketing & Public Relations Director, Gongos Research, 248-239-2381