Different by Design
Our Mission: The Center for Opinion Research empowers leaders and citizens to answer important questions and make strategic decisions by providing exceptional research design, reliable high-quality data, and insightful analysis. We also foster learning among researchers, students, and the public to encourage clear thinking about survey methods and results. We are deeply committed to seeing our community thrive, and we combine academic excellence with a community-based participatory approach that helps clients transform research into action to strengthen organizations and improve lives.
The Center is a non-profit and non-partisan survey research organization within Franklin & Marshall College. We are unique in Pennsylvania, and our research capabilities are greatly enhanced by our relationship with F&M. In addition to conducting surveys, we also pursue scholarly research, studying the methods and mechanisms of survey research itself. Therefore, evidence-based practices guide our choice of methodologies, which produces highly accurate data and actionable results for our clients.
Our research has been trusted and leveraged to develop policy, provide the public with clear and reliable information, and promote impactful change across many sectors, including nonprofits, healthcare, business, education, government, and community organizations. Our director, Berwood Yost, is a leader in the survey research field. He is contacted regularly by journalists, scholars, and community leaders to discuss polling methodology, poll and survey results, and implications of poll results for politics, public policy, and community services. Learn more about Mr. Yost’s research and expertise at berwoodyost.com.
Made in Lancaster
The Center was established in 1994 at Millersville University, following the creation of the Keystone Poll by the Center’s director, Berwood Yost, and Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs. Mr. Yost became director of the Center and head methodologist for the Keystone Poll, which soon attained statewide and national prominence. Mr. Yost greatly expanded the Center’s research capabilities, and we became an essential partner for leaders and organizations seeking reliable, in-depth information and insightful analysis.
In 2003 the Center for Opinion Research and the Center for Politics and Public Affairs moved to F&M, where Mr. Yost became the director of the Floyd Institute for Public Policy, which comprises both centers. Since 2023, Mr. Yost has worked closely with Dr. Stephen Medvic, professor of Government at F&M and now the director of F&M’s Center for Politics and Public Affairs. Over the last 32 years, in addition to directing the Keystone Poll (renamed the F&M Poll in 2008), Mr. Yost and the Center’s team have made significant scholarly and practical contributions in a host of areas, including: survey methodology; public policy and government; community health; and elections and democracy.
The Franklin & Marshall College Poll
Our flagship product is the F&M Poll, which has surveyed citizens to gather opinions on politics, elections, public policy, and topics of social interest since 1992. Recognized as one of the top surveys in the US, the poll provides key insights into voter opinion and behavior, and is frequently cited by national and global media outlets. Notably, the poll has been named by both The Washington Post and The New York Times as a preferred poll, based on our scientifically sound methodologies and transparency. To learn more, visit the F&M Poll website, where you can read survey releases and newsletters of scholarly and topical interest, and explore the F&M Poll archive to search poll results from 2000 to the present.
Community Partnerships
We are deeply invested in seeing our community thrive, because Franklin & Marshall is an integral part of Lancaster County. Director Berwood Yost and the Center’s principals have extensive knowledge of Central Pennsylvania through long experience here. We have a broad and deep understanding of the area—its people, culture, institutions, and geography—and a significant history of assessing its challenges, needs, opportunities, and assets. The Center shares, with many other organizations, a vision of ensuring that our community is healthy, prosperous, and provides a high quality of life, and we are committed to forming active partnerships with them.
Through such partnerships, our team has worked with stakeholders from many sectors—including healthcare, arts and culture, nonprofit, education, and business—to interpret data, facilitate data sharing, and agree on needs, priorities, and solutions. These have included the Lancaster County Business Group on Health, the Lancaster County Mental Health Collaborative, and LiveWell Lancaster County, for which Director Berwood Yost served as vice-chair. In addition, Mr. Yost was instrumental in creating the annual Lancaster County Health Summit. He is also a long-time member of the ALICE Research Advisory Committee, which reviews and guides ALICE reporting in Pennsylvania, and was a member of the group of researchers that started the York Counts initiative.