Research Participation Frequently Asked Questions

Research For Good helps organizations make paid research participation available to their existing users, customers, members and communities.

The questions below explain how participation works, the roles of Research For Good and participating organizations, how users are identified, how organizations earn money, and how participation can fit into existing websites, applications and user relationships.

About Research Participation

What is research participation?

Research participation allows people to take part in surveys and other research activities made available through an organization with which they already have a relationship.

Research For Good provides and operates the research opportunities, matches people with available activities, validates participation outcomes and pays the participating organization.

The organization retains its users and relationships and decides how the value generated through participation fits its own business, community or user-value model.

What kinds of research activities are available?

Research For Good provides access to paid research opportunities, including surveys and other forms of research participation.

The opportunities available to an individual can vary. Research For Good manages the participation experience and matching rather than requiring the partner organization to source or manage individual research projects itself.

Is this a survey panel?

No. An organization does not need to become a survey panel, and its users do not need to join Research For Good as members of a separate panel.

Research participation is added to the organization’s existing environment and relationship with its users.

Do users become Research For Good or SaySo Rewards members?

No. Participation does not require users to become members of a separate Research For Good program.

The participating organization remains the user’s home and retains the relationship.

About SaySo Rewards

What is SaySo Rewards?

SaySo Rewards (saysorewards.com) is a brand of Research For Good, Inc. (researchforgood.com), a U.S.-based market research company.

Research For Good provides research technology, opportunities, matching, validation and partner services. SaySo Rewards is used for participation-facing experiences and resources.

We are not affiliated with the Australian market research community called SaySo, operated by T garage Strategy & Research Pty Ltd at sayso.com.au. The companies are separate and unrelated.

What is SaySo Rewards’ track record?

SaySo Rewards has supported well over 10 million completed research activities and counting over many years (since 2013) as a brand of Research For Good. As with any research platform operating at significant scale, individual experiences vary. Public review sites include both positive and negative participant experiences. Feedback received directly through our website from thousands of participants over the years has generally been very supportive. We take participant concerns seriously, while our long operating history, substantial activity volume, and established relationships across the market research industry provide broad context for evaluating our business and reputation.

Is SaySo Rewards a member of any professional organizations?

Research For Good, owner of the SaySo Rewards brand, is a member of the Insights Association, and therefore follows strict ethical standards on the collection and handling of data and the treatment of participants. Research For Good is also compliant with ESOMAR standards, though not a member.

Why might older internet search results differ from current information about SaySo Rewards?

SaySo Rewards has been in business for many years and has evolved considerably over that time. Older internet pages, directory listings, reviews and search results may describe products, features, partnerships or operating practices that have since changed or are no longer part of our business.

The information on our current websites reflects how SaySo Rewards and Research For Good operate today. We welcome direct contact with any questions, comments or concerns about information you encounter elsewhere.

Organizations and Eligibility for Research Participation

What kinds of organizations can offer research participation?

Participation can be used by organizations that already have an identifiable group of users, customers, members, subscribers, supporters, readers, followers or other people with whom they maintain an ongoing relationship.

Examples can include commercial businesses, membership organizations, associations, community organizations, publishers and media properties, nonprofits, bloggers, creators and influencers, applications and digital services, advertising-supported properties, niche and interest-based sites and services, clubs, cultural organizations and other organizations with established audiences or communities.

The important characteristic is not a particular legal structure or industry. It is an existing relationship through which participation can be offered appropriately.

Does an organization have to be a nonprofit to use participation for fundraising?

No.

Research participation can create revenue for many types of organizations. A community organization may choose to treat that revenue as fundraising or support for its mission, but nonprofit status is not what makes participation possible.

Is participation only for community organizations?

No.

Research For Good supports both community-oriented and commercially oriented applications.

Community organizations may use participation for fundraising, engagement or member benefits. Commercial organizations may use it for incremental revenue, customer or audience engagement, user benefits or as another way to monetize an existing audience.

The underlying participation model is the same.

Is participation only for traditional businesses?

No.

A commercial application does not require a conventional retail or service business.

Publishers, bloggers, creators, influencers, advertising-supported properties, niche or interest-based operators, digital services and other organizations may have commercially valuable audience relationships even when their users are not conventional customers.

The Organization’s Role

Who owns the relationship with users?

The participating organization does.

The organization retains its users, brand, relationships, environment, authentication, communications and user-value model.

Research For Good provides and operates the research participation behind that relationship.

Who invites people to participate?

The organization does.

The organization decides when, where and how to make participation available and how to communicate the opportunity to its users, members or community.

This allows the invitation to come from an organization the person already knows rather than requiring Research For Good to establish a separate relationship with that person.

Does Research For Good market directly to the organization’s users?

No. Participation is designed around the partner organization retaining its communications and user relationship. The organization’s users receive their calls to action from the organization rather than Research For Good taking over those communications.

Does Research For Good take over part of our website or user experience?

No particular layout or experience is required.

Participation is intended to fit naturally within the organization’s existing authenticated user journey. The objective is to use the organization’s existing environment wherever practical rather than replace it with a separate RFG environment.

Do we have to promote participation in a particular way?

No.

The organization determines how participation fits its relationship with its audience and how it is presented within its normal communications and activities.

Easy discovery is generally preferable to making participation difficult to find, but Research For Good does not prescribe a particular website layout or promotional format.

User Identity and Privacy

Does Research For Good need our users’ names or email addresses?

Not as the normal participation identifier.

Participation generally originates from an authenticated partner environment. Research For Good normally receives a persistent, opaque identifier that can be used to associate participation outcomes with the correct partner user without using the person’s name, email address or phone number as the identifier.

A participant may separately provide contact information directly to Research For Good or SaySo Rewards, for example by submitting a contact form on our website, and our Privacy Policy accounts for those circumstances. That is separate from the information normally required to identify a user for research participation.

Research For Good always acts in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and according to the standards of the Insights Association of which it is a member.

What is a persistent opaque identifier?

It is an identifier that consistently represents the same user without itself being the user’s name, email address, phone number or other directly identifying information.

Persistence allows participation outcomes to be associated with the correct user over time. Opacity means the identifier does not need to reveal the person’s identity to Research For Good.

Why does the identifier need to be persistent?

A persistent identifier allows Research For Good and the partner to consistently associate participation activity with the correct partner user.

If a different identifier represented the person every time they participated, it would be more difficult to connect outcomes reliably and manage an ongoing participation relationship.

Does Research For Good need access to our customer or member database?

No. The participation model does not require Research For Good to take over the partner’s customer or member database.

The partner remains responsible for its user information and user relationship. The connection to Research For Good is designed around the information actually needed to operate participation and report participation outcomes.

Who authenticates the user?

Participation originates from an authenticated partner environment.

The partner therefore remains responsible for knowing who its user is. Research For Good can operate participation using the persistent opaque identifier associated with that user rather than requiring the user’s directly identifying information as the participation identifier.

Money, Earnings and User Value

How does the organization make money?

Research For Good pays the organization for successfully completed and validated research participation.

People participate in research, Research For Good validates the resulting activity, and successful participation generates earnings for the partner organization.

Who pays the organization?

Research For Good pays the participating organization according to the commercial arrangement established between Research For Good and the partner.

Does Research For Good pay our users directly?

No. The partner decides how Research For Good earnings translate into value for its users and fulfills that value.

This keeps the user-value relationship with the organization. Research For Good is not a direct part of this relationship.

Do we have to give all participation earnings back to users?

No particular user-value model is prescribed by Research For Good.

An organization can determine how participation earnings fit its own commercial, fundraising, membership or community objectives and what value, if any, it promises to individual participants.

The important requirement is that the organization fulfills whatever value or benefit it has communicated to its users.

Can we keep the participation revenue?

Participation can be used as a source of revenue for the organization.

The organization determines how that revenue fits its model, including whether some of the value is retained by the organization, allocated to some objective, provided to users, or combined across those purposes. It is however strongly recommended that all users be given an opportunity to obtain or share in a specific benefit of some kind from their participation. That benefit can be individual, collective, intrinsic, extrinsic, or a combination. Some individuals may participate with no desire for a benefit, but this should not be broadly assumed.

What can users receive for participating?

That depends on the organization.

Examples might include existing rewards, discounts, credits, merchandise, perks, fee reductions, benefits, drawing entries, recognition or other forms of value appropriate to the organization and its users. The partner should weigh both the intrinsic and extrinsic value of potential benefits, as users may be motivated by intrinsic, extrinsic, or both kinds of value.

For some community applications, participation may instead contribute primarily toward an organizational or community objective.

Do users have to receive cash?

No.

The partner determines the value offered to its users and can generally use forms of value that already make sense within its existing relationship.

Do we need to create a new rewards program?

Not necessarily.

Research For Good encourages reuse of existing reward, benefit and operational mechanisms wherever practical. If an organization already has a suitable way to provide value to users, participation can be connected to that mechanism rather than requiring a new rewards infrastructure.

Alternatively, simple programs can often be created requiring minimal administration while still providing meaningful and engaging benefits to the user population.

Do we need a wallet or points ledger?

Not necessarily.

Research For Good does not require partners to adopt any particular form of administration as part of the participation model.

The partner is the system of record for user value and can use its existing systems and processes where appropriate.

For simple or low-volume programs, straightforward and often manual processes may be entirely sufficient.

What does “system of record” mean in this context?

Research For Good is the system of record for participation outcomes. The partner organization is the system of record for value provided to its users.

For example, Research For Good may establish that a particular participation activity was successfully completed. The partner determines what that completion means within its own rewards, benefits or community program and records and fulfills the resulting user value.

These are related but distinct responsibilities.

Community and Fundraising Uses

How can research participation help a community organization?

It gives people another way to support an organization.

Instead of contributing money, a supporter can choose to spend some of their time participating in research. Successful participation generates revenue for the organization.

The organization can use that revenue for its mission, programs or particular objectives, provide benefits to participating members, or combine those approaches.

Does research participation replace donations or other fundraising?

No.

Participation can operate alongside or in-between donations, memberships, events, merchandise, sponsorships and other fundraising methods.

It adds another way to contribute rather than requiring an organization to abandon fundraising approaches that already work.

This is an intentional part of the appeal of research participation.

Why would someone participate instead of simply donating?

Different people have different ways in which they are willing or able to contribute.

Research participation provides an option for someone who wants to support an organization but does not want to, or cannot, make another cash or credit card donation.

People who already donate can participate as well, and are likely to do both.

Does participation have to be a fundraising campaign?

No.

Participation can be available on an ongoing basis.

An organization can also emphasize participation around a particular goal, project or campaign when appropriate.

Commercial Uses

How can a commercial organization benefit?

Participation can create incremental revenue from an audience the organization already has.

It can also provide another reason for users to return, create value between purchases or transactions, provide benefits to users, and monetize engagement that might not otherwise produce direct revenue.

Does a user have to buy something for the organization to benefit?

No.

That is one of the distinctive characteristics of participation.

A person may create commercial value through research participation even when they are not currently purchasing a product, paying a subscription or completing another transaction with the organization.

Can participation work alongside advertising?

Yes.

An advertising-supported publisher, website or other audience property may use research participation as an additional way of generating value from its audience.

Participation does not inherently require the organization to replace its existing advertising or other monetization methods.

Can bloggers, creators or influencers use participation?

Potentially, yes, provided they have the capabilities necessary to establish the appropriate participation relationship with their audience, especially a website or app.

The commercial model is not limited to traditional businesses. An established audience can have commercial value even when the organization or operator does not primarily sell products or services to that audience.

Can we use participation to provide discounts or credits?

Yes.

A commercial organization can determine how participation value fits its existing user-value model. Depending on the organization’s systems and program, that can include discounts, credits, fee reductions, merchandise, benefits or other forms of value.

What if someone never uses or claims any credits they may have?

The partner determines the rules governing any credits or benefits it creates, including expiration or non-use, subject to any applicable requirements. Research For Good does not administer the partner’s user-value system.

Implementation

How difficult is it to add participation?

For common platforms and straightforward use cases, the technical requirements are normally very simple.

Research For Good’s approach is to first identify the organization’s existing capabilities—such as its website or application, authentication, persistent user identification, communications and mechanisms for providing user value—and then to provide tools and instruction accordingly.

The objective is to configure and connect existing capabilities wherever practical, and not to create unnecessary new infrastructure.

Do we need to build a new website?

Normally, no.

Participation is intended to operate from the organization’s existing environment.

The appropriate implementation depends on the organization’s current website, application and user systems.

Do we need a special Research For Good portal?

A partner-facing portal is not a prerequisite to the underlying participation model.

Research For Good and the partner need the capabilities required to launch participation, identify users appropriately, exchange the necessary participation information and operate the commercial relationship. Existing partner architecture should be reused wherever practical.

Do we need a widget?

Not necessarily.

Research For Good does not prescribe a particular presentation layer. Participation might be discovered through a page, link, creative, existing user interface or another approach appropriate to the partner’s environment.

The important requirement is that the participation journey works correctly, not that every partner install the same type of interface.

Do we have to rename fields in our existing systems?

Not simply because Research For Good uses different terminology.

Organizations can normally map values from their existing systems into the information required for the participation connection. Internal field names do not need to be changed merely to match RFG terminology.

Does Research For Good support every website platform?

The participation model is platform-independent.

The practical implementation depends on what a particular platform and the organization’s existing configuration can do. Easy-to-use tools and instruction have been created for common platforms. Research For Good explains the requirements of the participation connection; platform documentation, support resources, internal developers or implementation partners can also be used to determine the simplest way to meet those requirements.

Can AI help us determine how to implement participation?

Yes, if an organization chooses to use it.

An AI assistant can be given the Research For Good implementation requirements together with information about the organization’s platform, website or application and relevant plugins or services.

It can then help identify capabilities that already exist, gaps that need to be addressed and possible implementation approaches.

AI is optional. Platform documentation, support teams, developers and implementation partners remain equally valid implementation resources. Easy-to-use tools and instruction have been created for common platforms and in such cases AI assistance is unlikely to be required.

Do we need developers?

Generally no, though that depends on the organization’s existing environment and the implementation being used.

Some organizations may already have the capabilities needed and require primarily configuration. Others may need technical assistance or a small extension to their existing systems. Easy-to-use tools and instruction have been created for common platforms which may allow implementation with no developer involvement.

The objective is not to introduce development work where existing capabilities can do the job.

Can rewards or user value be processed manually?

In some implementations, yes.

A simple, low-volume program—particularly one involving a predetermined value for a successful action—may not justify building automated reward infrastructure.

The appropriate process should reflect the actual volume and complexity of the program.

Participation Outcomes

How does our organization know that someone successfully participated?

Research For Good tracks and validates participation outcomes.

The participation connection allows those outcomes to be associated with the appropriate persistent partner identifier so that the organization can apply its own rules for user value or other follow-up.

What happens after someone finishes an activity?

Research For Good determines and records the participation outcome. The user returns to the partner environment, and the relevant outcome information can be connected to the partner’s process.

The partner then determines and fulfills any value associated with that outcome under its own program rules.

Are all participation opportunities worth the same amount?

Not necessarily.

Some participation programs can use a predetermined value for a successful completion. Other types of participation can have different values depending on the opportunity.

Where value varies, Research For Good can return completion information together with a numeric value that the partner interprets according to the agreed conversion.

This allows the partner to maintain its own user-value system without requiring Research For Good’s underlying economics to become the partner’s rewards system.

The User Experience

Are users required to participate?

No.

Research participation is always voluntary. The organization makes the opportunity available and users decide whether they want to participate.

Will every user receive the same research opportunities?

Not likely.

Research opportunities have different requirements, and Research For Good matches people with available participation based on the opportunities for which they may be relevant. A broad range of opportunities is available at any given time, often thousands of opportunities, although availability varies by individual user and over time.

Availability can therefore vary between people and over time.

Can someone participate more than once?

Yes. Participation is designed to support an ongoing relationship rather than necessarily being a one-time activity.

Where does the user go after participating?

The user returns to the partner organization.

The partner environment remains home: users begin there, enter Research For Good participation from there and return there afterward.

Getting Started

What does Research For Good need from an organization to get started?

The first step is to understand what the organization already has and how it wants to use participation.

Relevant capabilities can include an authenticated user environment, a persistent way to identify users, a place to make participation discoverable, and a process for providing any promised user value. If some of these capabilities are not already in place, Research For Good can help identify what is actually missing and the simplest practical way to address it.

Participation involves a commercial relationship between Research For Good and the partner. Before launch, the parties therefore enter into an insertion order governing that relationship.

What should we decide before implementation?

An organization should have a clear idea of:

• who will be offered participation;
• where those users will discover it;
• how users are authenticated and persistently identified;
• what participation is intended to accomplish for the organization;
• whether participants will receive individual value and, if so, what form that value will take; and
• how the organization will fulfill any value it promises.

The implementation can then be designed around those decisions and the capabilities the organization already has.

Where can I learn more?

For the overall model, see Research Participation with Research For Good and SaySo Rewards.

For community, membership and fundraising applications, see Research Participation for Communities.

For revenue-generating and other commercial applications, see Research Participation for Commercial Organizations.

Organizations considering participation can also contact Research For Good to discuss their existing environment, objectives and the simplest practical way to get started. Contact publishers@researchforgood.com or navigate to the home page and use the feedback form located there. We are happy to answer questions about privacy, implementation, participation and user value.