The background - adult education for all

The Jeffery-Machin Foundation (JMF) is part of the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), the UK’s largest voluntary provider of adult education. Following a bequest of £1M to the WEA, the Trust was formed with the sole purpose of offering adult education in the Hampshire region to people of all ages and backgrounds.

Their requirements - what does Hampshire want to learn?

With such a wide brief, the next step for JMF was to find out how best to allocate its funds. The JMF team knew that they did not want to compete with vocational adult courses already widely on offer in the region, but to inspire groups that would not normally engage in learning. Adult learning is associated with the unemployed or the retired populations, but JMF wanted to attract a wider, professional adult audience by offering them something they’d always wanted to learn, but didn’t have time to source. They had devised a ‘What do you want to learn?’ campaign; the brief to LCM was to handle a six-month project to reach as many people in the county with this message and find out from this hard-to-reach sector what subjects would inspire them to learn something new.

LCM's solution

A County-wide search for the most wanted courses
LCM recommended focusing on key groups. JMF’s original tender included a requirement for street surveys. JMF selected LCM for the work because they came up with better ideas. A county-wide targeted direct mail survey was more acceptable to the audience and it was sent out to coincide with a radio commercial that captured the attention of 400,000 listeners aged 25 plus across Hampshire. LCM identified key towns and villages in Hampshire and arranged the distribution of 32,000 leaflets to targeted residents, reaching varying social groups through demographic profiling. A partnership with Hampshire libraries saw a further 6,000 leaflets and posters reach audiences of people who are keen to keep learning. The leaflets contained learning ideas to stimulate the imagination and responders were incentivised by the offer of a free memory stick with a perceived retail value of £15 in return for a completed questionnaire.

To complement this, focus groups were held throughout the county, again with varying demographics such as young mums and business leaders. This provided detailed answers to add weight to the questionnaire campaign. 

Following the completion of the campaign, potential partnerships with Southampton and Portsmouth City Councils were investigated, to allow greater synergy for JMF once the project was completed.

The results

Courses designed by the people, for the people
The survey produced some interesting suggestions for courses, such as dog grooming, DJ skills, Egyptology and animal behaviour. The results of the survey were compiled into a 70-page document and presented to JMF. These were discussed, and key learning locations identified. The document and research project has helped JMF to identify key courses that will attract targeted learners. By gathering data from respondents, JMF was also able to create a database of interested learners so future marketing activity could be even more targeted. JMF can now offer courses that are grounded in firm research.