Most City Vision doctoral courses include a major research project, and there is a reason for that. A course assignment can give you a useful structure. It can teach you a tool and give you a place to practice using it. But the challenge facing your organization probably does not fit perfectly into any assignment prompt. The research project is where you take the tools from the course and build something that fits your actual situation.
Think of the difference between following a recipe and cooking a meal for people whose needs you know well. The recipe helps you learn. Eventually, though, you need to make choices for yourself. Or imagine walking through a hardware store: a course introduces you to tools, but you decide which ones belong in the project you are building. Research is one of the tools you should be able to reach for again and again.
The central question is not simply, “What can I write about?” It is, “How can I use research to improve my work on this course’s objectives and solve a problem that matters to my organization?” You might be working on a strategic plan, a change initiative, a social enterprise, a fundraising strategy, or a program improvement. In each case, the research project gives you room to investigate what others have done, consider possibilities, and bring better thinking into your final course project.
Key Takeaways
- Use the major research project to address an organizational need connected to the course.
- Research peer organizations broadly, then assess whether their contexts and values fit yours.
- Explore problems and solutions before narrowing your work into a final plan.
- Use AI to generate and investigate possibilities, not to replace your judgment or coursework.
Table of Contents
- The purpose of the major research project
- Research alongside your other assignments
- Divergent and convergent thinking: why you need both
- Move from a problem to a usable solution
- Finding peer models that actually fit your context
- What this looks like across doctoral courses
- Use AI to expand the search, not make the decision for you
- Make the research useful to your organization
The purpose of the major research project
The main goal is to use research to find models and best practices from peer organizations, then consider how those insights might apply in your own organization. That does not mean finding an impressive organization and copying its work. It means learning enough about a range of approaches to make more informed choices in your own context.
A well-chosen set of peer organizations can be remarkably useful. You might start with 10 organizations, or you might examine a much larger group of up to 100. If you work with rescue missions, existing lists of rescue missions can give you a starting point. If you work in another field, you can assemble a set of organizations in that domain instead. The point is to move beyond the first example that comes to mind and see what patterns, options, and questions emerge from a broader search.
Research should improve the final product of your work. If your course project is a strategic plan, research should help make that plan stronger. If you are developing a change proposal, it should help you understand the changes similar organizations have already made. If you need a policy, it might help you find examples and templates to study before drafting one suited to your organization.
This also lets you pursue a concern that a standard assignment cannot fully anticipate. We try to make course assignments practical across many student contexts. Still, no common assignment can match every organization’s priorities. Your immediate concern might be declining funding, the cultural health of your staff, a particular program practice, or a policy you need to develop. The major research project gives you space for a deeper investigation that remains connected to the course without being limited to the exact scope of its other assignments.
Start with the research tools you have
You do not have to wait until you feel like an expert researcher to begin. Doctoral orientation and research technologies provide enough of a foundation to get started. A research methods course can deepen your ability to use these tools, but the essential move is to apply what you know to a real question. What is the problem? Which organizations have dealt with something similar? What can you learn from them that would improve the work you are doing now?
Keep the course objective in view as you choose your topic. A question can be fascinating and still pull you too far from the work of the course. The most useful research topic sits at the intersection of the course subject and a genuine organizational need.
Research alongside your other assignments
A major research project works best when it runs in parallel with your other course assignments, rather than becoming something you start after everything else is nearly finished. As each assignment introduces a component of your final project, research can help you make better decisions about that component.
In a strategic planning course, for example, you might research peer organizations’ plans while working through the sections of your own plan. When you reach a priority area such as funding or staff culture, you can look more closely at what comparable organizations are doing there. The research is not a separate pile of information waiting to be attached at the end. It informs the decisions you make along the way.
You may be able to draw on deep research reports and on other papers or projects in your coursework, provided you follow the applicable citation guidelines. That matters because research is most valuable when its origins are clear. If an idea comes from a peer organization, a report, or earlier work, make that connection visible rather than presenting the idea without its source.
There is also an important distinction between what the research project and the other course projects are primarily doing. Use the major research project to think broadly; use the course projects to make choices. In other words, research often does more of the divergent work, while structured assignments often do more of the convergent work.
Divergent and convergent thinking: why you need both
When you face a complex problem, it is tempting to jump directly to a solution. That can feel efficient, especially when you already have a favorite approach. But an early answer may solve the wrong problem or overlook better possibilities.
Divergent thinking opens the field. It is exploratory, creative, and sometimes a little chaotic. You ask open-ended questions, investigate different interpretations, and generate multiple possible responses. This is particularly valuable during brainstorming, complex problem solving, and solution design. In the competing values framework used in our courses, it connects naturally with the create quadrant.
Convergent thinking narrows the field. It is more structured and straightforward. You define the problem, evaluate options, and produce a decision or deliverable. Many course assignments provide precisely this kind of structure. A SWOT analysis, for instance, gives you a defined way to organize your thinking rather than leaving you with an unlimited set of questions.
Where convergent work falls within the competing values framework depends on the course and the kind of decision you are making. A program course might place more emphasis on ministry. An HR or accounting course might emphasize control. Many doctoral courses require a synthesis across the quadrants. The point is not to label every task perfectly. It is to recognize when you need room to explore and when you need a disciplined way to decide.
If every part of your work is divergent, you can accumulate fascinating possibilities without producing a usable plan. If every part is convergent, you may complete a neat assignment without seriously investigating whether you chose the best path. Strong doctoral work moves between the two.
Move from a problem to a usable solution
One way to connect research with a course project is to move through four steps: discover the problem, define the problem, develop solution options, and finalize a project plan. You can think of the first two steps as working on the problem and the next two as working on the solution. Within each pair, you first open up possibilities and then narrow them.
1. Discover the problem
Begin by resisting the urge to assume that the problem has already been defined correctly. Research broadly. Look for the language other organizations use, the outcomes they care about, and the different ways they understand the challenge.
Suppose a rescue mission wants to improve its aftercare. At first, the issue might sound simple: people are relapsing after completing a program. But what exactly is happening? Is the concern substance use, loss of housing, another kind of setback, or some combination? What does “aftercare” include in this organization? Those are research questions, not details to brush aside.
Discovery is divergent. Its job is to reveal the range of things you may need to understand before committing to a solution.
2. Define the problem
Next, decide what the organization is actually trying to improve. Definitions matter because different organizations may use the same word differently. One organization may define relapse primarily in terms of substance use. Another may be concerned with housing stability as well. A faith-based ministry may also care about dimensions of a person’s progress that a secular organization would describe in different terms or would not include in the same measure.
Research helps you see those differences, but your organization must decide what is relevant to its mission and work. A clear problem definition gives the rest of the project a target. Without it, you can spend a great deal of time collecting aftercare ideas that do not address the outcome you most need to improve.
3. Develop solution options
Once the problem is defined, broaden the search again. How do peer organizations approach aftercare? What kinds of programs or practices do they use? A large comparison set, potentially including many dozens of organizations, can help you see possibilities that would not emerge from examining only one or two familiar examples.
At this stage, you are not obligated to adopt every promising idea. You are building a set of options. The goal is to give your eventual decision a stronger foundation than intuition alone could provide.
4. Finalize a project plan
Finally, move toward a solution you can articulate. Choose the approach that makes sense for the problem you defined and the organization you serve, then turn it into the plan or other final product your course calls for. This is where the open-ended research pays off: you can explain not only what you propose, but why you arrived there.
This discover, define, develop, and deliver pattern is also known in design work as the Double Diamond. It is useful here because it makes a crucial point visible: you should explore the problem before narrowing it, and explore solutions before selecting one. The same sequence can support a project in change management, social entrepreneurship, or many other doctoral courses.
Finding peer models that actually fit your context
A model organization is useful only if you understand the context behind its work. Size, setting, values, and the population served can all affect whether its approach makes sense for you. Research is not a search for the organization with the most polished website. It is a search for organizations whose experiences can help you reason about your own choices.
This is especially important when you are studying organizational change or recontextualization. Suppose your ministry is responding to changing demographics in its city. A rescue mission that has already worked through a similar demographic shift may have more to teach you than one operating in a very different environment. If you are adapting ministry in a post-Christian setting, it makes sense to look for missions that have already considered that setting.
Values matter too. An evangelical ministry studying an organization with substantially different theological commitments may encounter approaches it does not want to replicate. The reverse can also be true. You may still learn from an organization with different values, but you need to recognize the differences rather than importing its model uncritically. The question is not “Who looks successful?” but “Who has faced a relevant challenge in a context we understand?”
That principle applies beyond ministries. In social entrepreneurship, it may mean looking for organizations operating in the particular area you hope to enter. In program or counseling work, it means identifying experts and organizations with practices relevant to the program you are trying to improve. The closer the match between your research question and the peer’s experience, the more useful your investigation can become.
What this looks like across doctoral courses
The research project does not have to look identical from course to course. Its strength is that you can use the same research habits to address very different kinds of work. Here are several ways that might play out.
Strategic planning: go deeper where it matters most
Strategic planning is an especially strong setting for a major research project. Start by finding model strategic plans from peer organizations. They can help you think about what a plan covers and how its priorities are expressed. Then use deeper research on the priorities where your organization most needs help.
Most organizations have several recurring areas to consider in a strategic plan. Internal staff and culture may be one; funding may be another. But not every area deserves the same depth of investigation in every planning cycle. You may have five or eight standard areas in view, while only one, two, or three are the most urgent this year.
If funding has been decreasing, research funding strategies more deeply so your plan reflects serious strategic thinking rather than a general intention to raise more money. If organizational health is the pressing issue, use research to inform that part of the plan. A strong research project helps you give the greatest attention to the priorities where a better decision will make the greatest difference.
Change and recontextualization: learn from organizations that have made the shift
Several courses address change from different angles, including aligning strategy with theology and values, systems thinking, movements, and change management. In each, research can help you identify organizations that have already carried out a change similar to the one you are considering.
Perhaps your city’s demographics are shifting and your ministry needs to respond. Perhaps the surrounding culture has become more post-Christian, raising questions about how to communicate and organize your work. You do not need to pretend that no one else has faced these conditions. Look for organizations with a comparable context and investigate what they changed.
Then ask a second set of questions: Which parts of their approach fit your values? Which parts depend on conditions you do not share? What would need to be adapted rather than transferred? Research is most useful when it sharpens your judgment, not when it gives you permission to skip judgment.
Social entrepreneurship: connect models with the market
In social entrepreneurship, research can help you find both experienced people and promising organizational models. Say you are interested in thrift stores or culinary enterprises. You could survey a broad set of organizations, identify those with programs most relevant to your idea, find out who runs those programs, and seek a conversation with them. Publicly available information is a starting point; a conversation can help you understand the decisions behind it.
You can also investigate the business itself. If you are considering a catering social enterprise, look at what similar business models and business plans tend to include. Then examine your local catering market. National examples and local conditions answer different questions, and you need both kinds of thinking to develop an idea that fits where you are.
AI can help you rapidly generate possible business plan components, such as a draft marketing plan, for comparison and idea development. That is not the same as completing the course assignment. Submitting an AI-generated business plan as your own final social entrepreneurship project misses the purpose of the course. Use AI-generated material to explore options, not to replace the work of evaluating and building the plan.
Fundraising and grant writing: examine the whole system
For fundraising, major gifts, and grant writing, peer research can go beyond collecting campaign ideas. Investigate how effective organizations bring different pieces together. What fundraising domains do they work in? What models do they use? What roles do consultants or vendors play? A single tactic may look appealing, but the larger system often explains more.
You can study a set of peers, or you can choose one organization for a particularly deep investigation. Denver Rescue Mission, for example, offers a case for asking how a large rescue mission developed its fundraising and operations. Examine what you can find publicly, then consider speaking with people there to understand what the public information cannot tell you. The aim is not to assume your organization should become identical to Denver Rescue Mission. It is to reverse engineer useful lessons while keeping the differences between your organizations in view.
Program and counseling courses: investigate practice
Program and counseling courses offer another natural use for research: identify relevant experts and model organizations, then investigate programmatic best practices. If you are working on aftercare, for instance, your research might help you define the outcomes you care about, find organizations with relevant approaches, and develop options for improving your own program.
Here again, the research question should be specific enough to help your organization. “What are good programs?” is broad. “How are comparable organizations responding to the aftercare problem we have defined?” gives you something you can investigate and eventually act on.
Use AI to expand the search, not make the decision for you
AI can be particularly helpful in the exploratory stages of a major research project. It can help you generate questions, look for examples across many organizations, compare possible models, and notice connections among disciplines. If you have a list of peer organizations, AI-assisted research may help you work through it more systematically than you could by considering each organization in isolation.
Interdisciplinary questions are another promising use. You might be studying social entrepreneurship and lean startup while also asking how those concepts relate to theology and values. Research tools can help you surface connections that deserve further thought. That is an opportunity to ask better questions across courses and disciplines, not a reason to accept every connection they propose.
Keep the roles clear. AI can suggest an example, an approach, or a possible plan component. You still need to decide whether an organization is genuinely comparable, whether an idea fits your values, and whether the proposed work meets your course objectives. You also need to handle sources and citations according to course guidelines. The purpose of faster exploration is better human judgment and a stronger final product.
Make the research useful to your organization
As you shape a project, it helps to keep a few practical questions in front of you:
- What organizational problem am I trying to solve? Name it clearly enough that the research can inform a real decision.
- How does it connect to the course? Use the course’s concepts and objectives as tools for the problem, rather than treating the project as unrelated independent work.
- Which peers are relevant? Look for organizations whose context, work, or values make their experience instructive.
- Where do I need to explore broadly? Make room to discover the problem and generate multiple options before choosing one.
- What will I produce with what I learn? Research should strengthen a plan, policy, program proposal, or other course project, not simply collect interesting information.
There is room for a focused project as well as a broad one. If you need a particular organizational policy, a research project could examine examples of that policy and available templates. If funding is the challenge, the project could investigate peer fundraising models in depth. If your question crosses disciplinary lines, it could help connect the course’s methods with ideas from another course or field. What unites these projects is their practical direction: each should help you move from a question that matters to work you can use.
Course resources can help you get started, including AI prompt suggestions and research guidelines, along with a directory of rescue missions and city missions for those working in that area. Treat them as starting points for inquiry. The value of the project ultimately comes from how thoughtfully you use the tools, assess the models, and apply what you learn.
That is the opportunity built into a major research project. The structured assignments help you practice. The research gives you space to investigate the challenge your organization actually faces. Put them together, and you are not merely completing a course requirement. You are using doctoral work to build a better answer to a real problem.