Abstract:

The non-profit sector is also called the third sector and this term refers to the organizations operating independently of any government (NGOs), whose purpose is usually to conduct social, environmental or political activities. In Poland dedicated research methods have been developed solely for the purposes of analyzing this sector. These methods allow to take into account the diversity of the surveyed organizations and are typically based on the stratified sampling methods, however the purposive selection is also in use. In this paper, a preliminary assessment of the applicability of the new method of researching the NGO sector in Poland is made. This method is based on selected PPS (Probability Proportional to Size) sampling plans such as sieve sampling and Lahiri sampling. A proposal of adapting these sampling schemes to the study of the NGO population is presented. A comparative analysis is also carried out in relation to the currently used method, including sample size and the population structure.