FRUGing

When a survey is not conducted to gather valid information but instead to stimulate fund-raising for a cause or organization, this practice is know as FRUGing (“fund-raising under the guise of research”) and rhymes with “tugging.” In a FRUGing solicitation, the answers a respondent gives to the putative survey are of lesser or no importance compared to the main goal of eliciting donations.

The effect of FRUGing on the survey enterprise is a deleterious one. On average, response rates to surveys have been declining. Reasons for this are varied but include the unethical practice of conducting false surveys for an ulterior motive; FRUGing is one such practice.

The full extent and effects of FRUGing calls, mailings, and interviewing is difficult to estimate, although empirical research on nonresponse in Canada has indicated that one quarter of citizens have received a FRUGing call or mailing. Market and survey research associations in several countries have taken the lead in public education, advocating for anti-FRUGing legislation and confronting organizations that conduct FRUGing.

FRUGing solicitations are different from legitimate surveys in that the questions are not designed to accurately understand respondents' beliefs and perceptions but rather to facilitate and lead up to a request for a donation. For that reason, FRUGing questions may be overly brief, simplistic, and often are biased in favor of the issues that are important to the organization behind the FRUGing and assumed to be important to those who are being “FRUGed” by that organization.

For example, imagine a FRUGing solicitation aimed at raising money to combat climate change that might ask the following question: How much more could you do to fight the soon-to-be catastrophic and life-changing effects of global warming? (I) A little more, (2) A good deal more, or (3) A lot more. This type of question wording obviously attempts to predispose the respondent to positively respond to the later solicitation for a donation to combat global warming. It also uses dramatic wording to play upon the concerns of those who are being FRUGed.

Because the sample that is “surveyed” during a FRUGing solicitation is likely to have strong opinions and to be skewed about the topic of the survey, any use of the data from the survey can result in intentionally misleading or biased findings, which the funding organization may then attempt to use to influence public opinion or public policy.

Survey researchers who find themselves in a situation where they are encouraged to attach a solicitation to a survey should take the opportunity to educate their client on the unethical aspects of this practice [Page 295]and the research consequences of such an action. Furthermore, in addition to being an unethical practice, FRUGing telephone calls are also illegal in the United States under the Federal Trade Commission's 2003 Telemarketing Sales Rule.

In Canada, FRUGing is known as SUGing (“soliciting under the guise of research”), leading to confusion in the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, where SUGing is denned as “selling under the guise of research.”