A final presentation for Public Relations research determining how to obtain student volunteers for the Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department in Statesboro, GA.

1. PR Research Final
Presentation
Sarah Davis
Bailee Jordan
Kelly McGahee
Ashleigh Townsend

2. Goals of the Project
 Our goal for this project was to gain the knowledge that
would allow us to recruit as many student volunteers as
possible to aid the Bulloch County Parks and Recreation
Department in a variety of ways.
 Through our survey and focus group, we sought to
determine the relationship between demographic
characteristics and one’s attitude towards volunteering.
 Having a better understanding of which students are the
most likely and willing to volunteer would make the task
of recruiting volunteers feasible.

3. Bulloch County Parks and
Recreation Department
 Our study focused on the The Bulloch County Parks and Recreation
Department’s desire to obtain more volunteers from Georgia
Southern University.
 The main mission of the Bulloch County Parks and Recreation
Department is to provide quality, diversity, wholesome parks and
recreation services to meet the needs of the citizens of Bulloch
County.
 The Bulloch County Parks and Recreation Department is a public
recreation department that maintains and operates eight recreation
areas and the 28 buildings on these parks.
 Included in these parks are athletic fields, tennis courts, swimming
pools, walking trails, playgrounds and picnic pavilions.

4. Focus Group
 In early September, we conducted a focus group report
surveying a group of nine college seniors at Georgia
Southern University.
 All nine students were public relations majors ranging in age
from 20 to 22 years old.
 Our group of participants showed interest in volunteering in a
variety of fields.
 Across the board, all of our participants agreed that time is
the biggest factor among their personal lack of volunteering.
 They collectively agreed that by allowing a flexible schedule
and offering academic incentives our client would see an
increase in their willingness to volunteer.

5. Survey
 After completing our focus group, we distributed an online survey
via Qualtrics and was composed of a convenience sample.
 A total of 285 participants took the survey.
 From this survey, we have concluded that most of the Georgia
Southern students enjoy volunteering and see its importance.
 The students who took the survey were predominantly female and
most of these students are heavily involved in extracurricular
activities.
 Our studies show that the students on Georgia Southern’s campus
would be more willing to volunteer with Bulloch County Parks and
Recreation Department if they knew more about the opportunities
to volunteer with athletics, after school child care, and recreation.

6. Internal Environments
 There are many benefits and advantages to students volunteering
with this organization, one being, flexible volunteer hours to work
around school schedules.
 Secondly, they offer many different departments to volunteer in
such as youth athletics, event planning, and the after school
program.
Advantages

7. Internal Environments
 Our client is not utilizing the on and off campus resources.
 For example, Bulloch County Recreational Department lacks a strong social media
presence.
 In our teams initial focus group report, the participants from the focus group
stated that Twitter and Facebook posts would attract their attention.
 We suggested our client get in touch with Georgia Southern University
individual colleges such as CLASS. Colleges such as the College of Liberal Arts
and Social Sciences, have a strong social media presence. Working with
CLASS we would ask them to post on our Clients behalf, this would attract a
small percentage of the student body easily.
 A lack of utilizing marketing funds.
 Accessing these funds to sponsor Facebook posts targeted to students at Georgia
Southern University is another way to have a greater presence amongst the student
body.
 In conclusion, in order to better our clients efforts, we suggest initiating a
greater presence on and off campus to strengthen their number of volunteers.
Disadvantages

8. External Environments
 Due to its placement in a busy college town, Bulloch County
Recreational Department is not the only business seeking college
volunteers.
 Most college students have required volunteer hours, and they are
attempting to complete these hours as easily and quickly as
possible.
 Two of the main external competitors is Georgia Southern
University’s Leadership and Community Engagement Department
and The Bulloch County Humane Society.
 The Bulloch County Recreational Department does not have as
prominent of a presence on the campus, and the students are not
well informed with the compensation they could potentially receive
if they volunteer.

9. External Environments
 Another opposition to The Bulloch County Parks &
Recreation Department is the Greek system.
 All Greeks are required to have volunteer hours; so
many organizations target the Greek system for
advertising purposes.
 Greeks are a major part of the student volunteering
community at Georgia Southern University, but they are
not well informed about the Bulloch County Recreational
Department.

10. Results
 Given these results we can conclude that the audience
that we should target the most are female Georgia
Southern students who are already involved in some
sort of extracurricular activity.
 We learned that most people prefer to volunteer for
activities that are similar to what the parks and
recreation department offers, which means that we
should be able to gain a large number of volunteers if
we target the right audience.