Nonprofit marketing: marketing for a good cause

Nonprofit or­ga­ni­za­tions (NPO’S) or as­so­ci­a­tions can be divided into economic, socio-cultural, political, and social NPO’S. They receive financial support either through state funds, donations, and/or mem­ber­ship fees. However, the profit achieved is not dis­trib­uted to the members of the or­ga­ni­za­tions, but invested in the or­ga­ni­za­tion or the project.

NPO’s are mainly dependent on volunteer helpers. Depending on the size and the ori­en­ta­tion of the or­ga­ni­za­tion, full-time staff may also be employed. In addition to their large number of voluntary employees, global NPO’s, such as Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al and Green­peace, also employ permanent staff to cope with daily ad­min­is­tra­tive work.  

The following table shows examples of different NPO types:

In order for your project to be a success, you need to have a good marketing concept. Since nonprofit or­ga­ni­za­tions must hold their own in the market, their marketing tools are not sig­nif­i­cant­ly different from those of a profit-oriented company. In essence, both have the same goal: the project is to ‘sell’ well and appeal to a broad target group. The big dif­fer­ence, however, is that NPOs are focused on the re­al­iza­tion of their char­i­ta­ble project, rather than the numbers. However, depending on the size of the project, they need a certain amount of capital and personnel, and above all, many dedicated members.

Nonprofit marketing is based on so-called fundrais­ing because of its limited financial and human resources. Through ‘pro­cure­ment marketing’, NPOs try to address a broad target group and increase their active par­tic­i­pa­tion. The more people volunteer for the project and pay mem­ber­ship fees, the more suc­cess­ful­ly it can be im­ple­ment­ed. In order to create in­cen­tives for social en­gage­ment, NPOs also use other marketing tools in addition to standard marketing measures. What does a well-planned non-profit marketing scheme look like?

Many people want to make the world a little better. In the USA, one in three people con­tribute to the common good, through donations or voluntary work in clubs, ini­tia­tives, or other groups. Do you have a nonprofit project but are not sure how or where to start with it? Have a little courage. The world renowned human rights or­ga­ni­za­tion Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al also started out very small:

In May 1961, founder Peter Benenson came across a newspaper article on the arrest of two students who had been ap­pre­hend­ed in a café in Portugal for raising a toast to freedom. Ab­solute­ly livid, Benenson called on the readers of the British newspaper The Observer to get involved with letters for the release of political prisoners. The ‘Appeal for Amnesty’ campaign has been a complete success and has marked the beginning of a global movement committed to the defense and en­force­ment of human rights. Today, Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al is one of the most powerful and in­flu­en­tial nonprofit or­ga­ni­za­tions in the world, with more than 7 million members in more than 150 countries.

There is a lot that needs to be organized in order to carry out a campaign, such as putting together, printing, and sending in­for­ma­tion or ad­ver­tis­ing banners, offering in­for­ma­tion stands and updating websites and data stock. However, you cannot overlook everyday office ac­tiv­i­ties among the tasks of an NPO. The larger your or­ga­ni­za­tion or project, the more you depend on the help of others.

Since most of the funds are used for the project itself, you mainly need volunteer helpers. Mo­ti­va­tion plays a decisive role here. Strength­en this by making your employees un­der­stand that you have a common goal, and that you are dependent on their help. NPOs do not usually have a normal employer-employee re­la­tion­ship. The social project in the fore­ground often leads to a com­plete­ly different cohesion, which is enor­mous­ly important for the success of your NPO.

Clients and external creditors are important factors in the financing of your project. For example, you can make good use of your revenue in aspects such as mem­ber­ships, or the sale of products. Donations from external creditors are also useful sources of money. Try to inspire profit companies or private donors for your project, and include them as positive stake­hold­ers in your NPO.

Once you have set your goals and analyzed your en­vi­ron­ment, you are ready to start im­ple­ment­ing your project. Fundrais­ing is one of your primary tasks. This means the pro­cure­ment of all necessary resources – at the lowest cost possible. Carefully list every­thing you will need for the project, such as:

• Money (donations, mem­ber­ship fees, etc.)
• Con­tri­bu­tions in kind (vehicle donations, tech­nol­o­gy, clothing etc.)
• Services (donations in the form of voluntary com­mit­ments)

From your list, you can then determine the marketing in­stru­ments and com­mu­ni­ca­tions channels that need to be used. In general, you should make use of several com­mu­ni­ca­tion options to obtain resources. Which one you choose, on the one hand, depends on the target group and, on the other hand, on the cost-benefit balance. In nonprofit marketing, you can choose between different, sometimes cost effective channels:

• Personal contact through events or house visits
• Internet (postal campaigns for members, donations, or a general newslet­ter)
• Event marketing
• Mass media (press, TV, radio)
• Telephone fundrais­ing
• SMS donations

Es­pe­cial­ly in e-commerce, cost saving and time saving com­mu­ni­ca­tion channels are easy to find. Online fundrais­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly useful for petitions, mem­ber­ships, and donations, because it can reach a large number of people within a very short time, at a very low cost. In addition to tra­di­tion­al e-mails, newslet­ters, and websites with donation forms, new ways of com­mu­ni­cat­ing have emerged. For example, entire online com­mu­ni­ties have formed on social media platforms (Facebook, blogs, etc.) to acquire donations, members, and other resources.

Examples of pro­fes­sion­al nonprofit marketing campaigns show that ad­ver­tis­ing messages over the internet can be a wild success. YouTube, in par­tic­u­lar, has become the second-largest search engine to become a popular platform where NPOs can upload ad­ver­tis­ing clips without any effort and costs, and reach people all over the world.

Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al regularly uploads small clips on YouTube and other social media platforms to educate the pop­u­la­tion about the world’s griev­ances and to protest human rights vi­o­la­tions. To mark the 50^th jubilee, they showed a video clip stating that their or­ga­ni­za­tion stands for the freedom of the people of the world:

The nonprofit or­ga­ni­za­tion Green­peace also uses ex­pres­sive, emotional images and videos to enlighten the rabid nature of ex­ploita­tion and to promote climate pro­tec­tion: