In August 1988, as I sat in Tom Quirk’s office, interviewing in hopes of becoming editor of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review, he told me that one of the main drivers for starting the magazine in late 1986 was education.

In his previous years as a researcher on the client side and the vendor side, he said he had encountered time and time again a lack of experience with and awareness of marketing research and the many business goals it could help organizations accomplish. His hope was that a monthly publication focused on presenting successful applications of research, across all industries, could help current researchers sell-in the value of the projects they were proposing while also generally raising the profile of research and helping establish it as a business discipline.

The rest, as they say, is history and as we approach the 30-year mark since the magazine’s October 1986 debut, the drive to be involved in education is still strong. Earlier this year, Tom’s son Steve, president of Quirk’s Marketing Research Media, was excited to be involved in the launch of the Marketing Research Education Foundation (MREF).

The organization’s stated mission is to “unify, inspire and activate the marketing research community to focus its collective resources to educate children worldwide.” Some of the planned ways to do that include financial grants to educational non-profits, organized volunteer days at disadvantaged schools, mission trips to help educate children and financially supporting the building of schools in third-world nations.

Along with Steve Quirk, MREF board members include Jim Bryson, CEO, 20|20 Research; Steve Schlesinger, CEO, Schlesinger Associates; Howard Gershowitz, senior vice president, Mktg. Inc.; Carla Lindemann, COO, Issues & Answers Network; Ed Sugar, vice president, client services, Interviewing Service of America; Don Marek, former executive director, Marketing Research Institute International; and David Almy, CEO, Marketing Research Association.

The kickoff to the MREF was a brief ceremony at the Quirk’s Event in Brooklyn, N.Y., earlier this year. Five members of the MREF executive board were on hand to grant $5,000 to Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT). Selected from four New York-based educational non-profits, OBT was founded in 1983 and provides education, training and job placement for both disadvantaged youth and young adults. More recently, in June MREF awarded Old Town Academy in San Diego a $5,000 grant to train teachers in project-based learning and common core subjects.

The MREF will be present at a number of industry events going forward, including the Corporate Researchers Conference in St. Louis in October (where a volunteer day is in the works), the Market Research Event in Orlando, Fla., in November and, of course, the 2016 Quirk’s Event in Brooklyn in February. If you’d like to get involved, stop by and chat with a representative there or visit www.mrgivesback.org.