The CARA Vision
pic-2CARA is a national, non-profit, Georgetown University affiliated research center that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church. Founded in 1964, CARA has three major dimensions to its mission:
to increase the Church’s self understanding
to serve the applied research needs of Church decision-makers
to advance scholarly research on religion, particularly Catholicism.
CARA has more than 50 years of experience in quality social science research on the Catholic Church. We offer a range of research and consulting services for dioceses, parishes, religious communities and institutes, and other Catholic organizations. CARA’s longstanding policy is to let research findings stand on their own and never take an advocacy position or go into areas outside its social science competence. All CARA researchers have advanced degrees in relevant academic disciplines as well as pastoral experience. CARA researchers are active in the academic community publishing and presenting research about the Catholic Church.
For more information about CARA’s beginnings read the following Review of Religious Research article from 1967 by Francis X. Gannon entitled, Bridging the Research Gap: CARA, Response to Vatican II
What We Do
CARA is a full-service, applied social science research center that studies Catholicism and the Catholic Church. Some of the things we can do for our clients include:
Surveys (online, mail, telephone)
Focus Groups (in-person and online)
Personal Interviews (in-person, telephone, online)
Demographics/Planning (diocesan, parish, schools, charities, social services)
Trend Analysis, Forecasting, and Projections
Mapping
Annual Data Collection for Organizations
Program Reviews
Market Research
Experiment Research (e.g., pre-test, post-test)
Archival/Historical Research
Grant Research (i.e., conducting research for a client’s grant project)
White Papers
Presentations/Speaking
Writing and Reporting (academic, Catholic press, news)
Data Entry/Database Creation and Maintenance
Independent, Tailored Analyses