Using Google Maps to Generate Organizational Sampling Frames

Abstract

Organizational researchers use a variety of methods to obtain sampling frames. The utility of these methods, however, is constrained by access restrictions, limited coverage, prohibitive costs, and cumbersome formats. This article presents a new method for generating sampling frames for any type of organization that is cost-effective, uses publicly available data, and produces near-comprehensive sampling frames for any geographic area in the U.S. The Python-based program we developed systematically scans the Google Maps platform to identify organizations of interest and retrieve their contact information. We demonstrate the program’s utility by generating a sampling frame of religious congregations in the U.S. To assess Google Maps’ coverage and representativeness of such congregations, we examined two nationally representative samples of congregations and a census of every congregation in Indianapolis. We found that Google Maps contains approximately 98% of those congregations––near-complete coverage that ensures a near-perfect degree of representativeness. Using Google Maps to generate sampling frames promises to significantly improve the process for obtaining representative samples for organizational studies by reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and providing greater coverage and representativeness.

The Others: Finding and Counting America's Invisible Churches

“…Recent studies have suggested that Google maps can be used noninvasively to capture 98 percent of religious congregations in Indianapolis (Fulton 2023). There is promise in this methodology, so long as new congregations are uploaded to Google.…”

“…Others should attempt to recreate our findings with the fully released RCMS 2020 data, perhaps by using alternative methodologies (Fulton 2023). As we can see from our analysis of the publicly available McLennan County data, RCMS 2020 is still underreporting the number of religious congregations in the county by 23.3 percent.…”

Activity and Identity: Uncovering Multiple Institutional Logics in the Nonprofit Sector

“…Religion is a well-known, yet underexplored, logic operating in the nonprofit sector that exhibits characteristics of both an activity and an identity (Austin et al, 2022; Clerkin & Grønbjerg, 2007; Ralph et al, 2022). Prior research establishes that religious congregations are the most numerous type of nonprofit organization (Brauer, 2017; Fulton & King, 2023), that they receive nearly one-third of charitable dollars (Giving USA, 2020) and that they mobilize more volunteers than any other type of nonprofit (Grønbjerg & Never, 2004). Such research is based primarily on nonprofit organizations whose primary activity is related to religion (e.g., Scheitle, 2010), that is, using an activity-based logic.…”