My goal is to develop effective public and programs for elected officials and practitioners. At the same time, I want to receive credit for my work. I am not connected with an University.
I would say it greatly depends on where you want to publish. For replication and validating purposes, the preference may be in most fields to have the stamp of approval from the IRB.
Thanks for the answers. For my small business development research project, I may stick with secondary research data, since the focus is to create policies and programs that will allow local entrepreneurs to succeed in gentrified communities. The welfare to career project may be a different story, but I may gain an interest of a researcher who is connected to a major policy institute.