5 Reasons Your Not-for-Profit Marketing May Be Failing
Marketing of not-for-profit causes and organisations is the challenge of a lifetime. Many people expect that, because they’re promoting something incredibly worthwhile and rewarding, they simply need to get the message out and tens of thousands of supporters will materialise overnight. But as anybody who’s actually tried it can attest, that’s very rarely the case. Why?
In an increasingly socially conscious generation, many organisations are competing for the attention of your target audience. Numerous causes are asking donors to contribute funds out of the generosity of their heart, but with no direct economic benefit being offered in exchange, and the public is becoming increasingly discerning in their selection of organisations to support.
Here are five of the most common areas, in my experience, that marketing of NFP’s fall short:
1. Lack of Knowledge
Effective marketing strategies require market knowledge, product knowledge, company knowledge, and a strong working knowledge of the marketing mediums in which you’re going to promote.
I frequently see enthusiastic marketers throwing themselves directly into marketing campaigns based on a host of assumptions, many of which are inaccurate or unclear.
People often don’t know what they don’t know. Often, some basic market research would improve their focus, saving a lot of wasted energy on unproductive activities, and uncovering key motivators for their audience.
Likewise, when it comes to social media and online marketing opportunities, many marketers are struggling to keep up with a rapidly evolving landscape which changes the dynamics of marketing significantly. Where historically marketers ‘advertised’ their wares and controlled what was said, now consumers have the power and it is up to marketers to win their loyalty, support, and recommendations.
It is critical that marketers dedicate a suitable portion of their time to meeting with their peers, attending seminars, listening to the counsel of experts in their field, and generally ensuring that they are exposed to the successes of leaders in these new fields. (Our Marketing Essentials Seminar in September 2011 is one such venue to enhance their practical knowledge and skills in areas of Market Research, Internet Marketing, and Social Media).
2. Lack of Resources
I’ve seen a lot of campaigns launch and flop that were reasonably well devised, but failed predominantly because the organisation underestimated the resources necessary to achieve the stated goals.
A well researched and targeted message, with a compelling proposition, still needs to be heard by enough people. And the results are not linear. As you reach a certain level of public awareness, the message can take on a life of its own and this has a multiplying effect.
Therefore, radio advertising on a community radio station for a short period (e.g. a couple of weeks) may have little or no impact, and yet it’s inaccurate to assume that multiplying the radio budget by a factor of 10 would yield similarly poor results.
Using the same message, but increasing the repetition over a longer period of time and to a larger audience, may well generate great results, particularly when conducted as part of an integrated strategy with email marketing, social media, blogs, and so on.
Not-for-profit organisations need to understand that the old adage ‘you need to spend money to make money’ is (unfortunately) still essentially true.
Whilst you may be able to find clever ways to get free exposure, it’s very rare that an organisation can effectively promote themselves without dedicating the necessary human resources and budget to their marketing.
3. Lack of Differentiation
If you’ve researched the market, devoted sufficient resources, and got the message out to the right audience, the question still remains – “so what?”, “Why should I get involved with your organisation?”
Most of us are overwhelmed by a never-ending stream of requests from thousands of organisations all asking us to pitch in and help their ostensibly worthy cause. How does an individual decide who he’s going to commit his limited time or money to?
It’s a sad reality that the majority of the world lives in poverty, and there are tens of thousands of organisations trying to feed and educate starving and malnourished children, provide sanitary drinking water supplies, eradicate malaria and AIDS, and so on. Whilst your goals are noble, so are the goals of the last 10 requests the consumer was confronted with.
The key is differentiation. How you ‘position’ and differentiate yourself is a critical element of your marketing strategy.
4. Lack of Relationship
As more and more organisations go online to find and connect with their ‘audience’ and stakeholders, some are still thinking in the mindset of traditional advertising – that is, present a carefully crafted message for the masses, and trust that a sufficient percentage will respond favourably.
Social media marketing requires an adjustment of mindset. Whilst there are still opportunities to present advertisements and offers, the real power of social media lies in engaging the public (in particular your target audience) so that they participate in discussions, share your ideas with their own social networks, and give you suggestions, feedback, and even criticism.
Social media marketing is about relationship.
5. Lack of Sustainability
Perhaps the greatest challenge for many not-for-profit organisations, particularly those involved in international development and poverty alleviation, is leveraging the donations of financial supporters so that current marketing activities reap longer term rewards.
This is potentially the single most important question not-for-profit organisations can ask themselves. It’s a much bigger question than just “how do we advertise what we do”, it actually requires that you continually review your core operations and be prepared to enhance and adapt them to maximise the impact of the funding your receive.
I believe that it’s time for a lot of organisations to ask some tough questions about their whole operational model and consider new opportunities such as ‘creative capitalism‘, micro-lending, capacity building, and other commercial endeavours that, with the assistance of seed capital to launch, will over time become self-sustaining. (The book ‘Out of Poverty‘ by Paul Polak illustrates this brilliantly and may provide some inspiration. Also check out kiva.org)
If you could market your not-for-profit organisation with the promise of multiplying rewards, and potentially even some small returns to ‘investors’ (as opposed to donors) you would open the door to a vast new audience who, under current models, may be completely unreachable.
A Visit to Smokey Mountain
The solemn little girl sat on the broken concrete rubble, persistently picking away at an old bicycle tyre. Even as our van parked a couple of metres away, she didn’t look up or shift her focus. Perhaps if she thought only about this task at hand, her surroundings could fade away into unreality.
The reddish auburn streaks in her hair are a typical sign of malnourishment. Although she has ‘graduated’ from the program at the nearby Young Focus Feeding Centre and a doctor has assessed her health as satisfactory, this girl, like the many others living at Smokey Mountain, still has a daunting road ahead of her.
Smokey Mountain is essentially a garbage dump. It consists of over 2 million tons of waste that decomposes at such high temperatures it can spontaneously combust, resulting in many fires, perpetual smoke, loss of life, and leading to the name of this internationally renowned cesspool of poverty. Approximately 700 families literally live on the dump, and about 30,000 people live near the site and make their living by reclaiming materials for recycling – plastics, rubber, aluminium cans, in fact just about everything can be, and is, reclaimed, sorted, packed, and sold for a miserable few pesos.
During my visit, I was heartbroken to see children like this little girl sitting completely unattended alongside piles of garbage, in terribly unhygienic conditions.
But amongst the images of despair, there were also signs of hope.
Spearheaded by Manuel Manarang, who himself grew up in Smokey Mountain, Young Focus operates a feeding centre and an education centre in Smokey Mountain, and, with the assistance of WE International Philippines and a constant procession of dedicated volunteers, programs are being rolled out to assist the children all the way through their education and right up until the point they complete their education, gain employment, and are stable in their job.
The feeding centre has a batch of young children, some as young as 6 months old, who arrive about 7am each morning, and receive food, love, attention, and care until about 2pm. After 2pm, they return to their families, where they are again sitting amongst the garbage and exposed to the health and physical risks that come with the territory. There is also a weekly visit from a doctor, and a nurse visits on two further days per week, ensuring that medical conditions are identified and treated.
The education centre is currently staffed by one paid Filipino teacher and one self-funded American teacher, and received a grant from HSBC for their first year of operations. Sports programs are also being developed to help the children gain exposure to society outside Smokey Mountain and develop self-confidence. Scholarships and educational assistance, student-of-the-month awards, career guidance, and resumé writing services are all provided to maximise the opportunities for the kids of Smokey Mountain as they grow up and seek to fulfil their potential.
However, the needs are huge, and the funds always limited. Right at this moment, WE International Philippines is actively seeking sponsorship, donations and support for:
- Education Centre – another year of sponsorship is required to continue operations after May 2011. This was US $22,000 for the last year, but WE Intl Philippines and Young Focus dream of adding a further teacher to the staff to better assist the younger children
- Sports Progam – after a last minute loss of a sponsor, the newly formed Smokey Mountain Rugby Team needs sponsorship to cover the cost of a van to Saturday matches, sports uniform/kit, and a meal on each match day.
- Feeding Program – the feeding centre always needs funding, and increased funding would provide capacity to assist more children.
- Administration Sponsor – despite how unglamorous it is to donate funds to the office administration, WE International Philippines desperately needs another pair of hands on deck as the increasing scope and number of programs at Smokey Mountain puts increasing pressure on Geni and Trina. Financial support for this administrative function would enable them to further develop and expand their operations, both in operations and marketing.
For further information, visit www.weinternational.org.ph or contact me directly.
20 hours until I depart for Philippines… and typhoon on it’s way
With only a few more hours in my office, and my bags almost packed for departure tomorrow to Philippines, I’m really looking forward to arriving in Manila on Thursday. During my trip I’ll be visiting some of my friends at various not-for-profit organisations, interviewing (through informal conversations) low-income slum dwellers, photographing some of the <$1/day Filipinos, and meeting with potential marketing partners in Manila.
However, for anyone who’s picturing it as a cruisy holiday in a tropical island paradise, you might not have exactly the right image! For starters, there’s a typhoon due to hit Manila late today, and the schools have closed early and sent kids home about 1pm.
I’m flying via Kuala Lumpur, so I expect that the worst of the gale-force winds and heavy rains will have eased before I arrive, but there’s still a high probability of flooding, possible power outages, and potential road blocks due to fallen objects such as billboards, light poles, and trees.
This is a regular occurrence in Philippines, and many other tropical nations that lie in the path of monsoon rains, typhoons and hurricanes. The flooding in Manila on September 26th last year was the most severe in about forty years, but lesser floods still have a huge impact not just on transport and commerce, but also directly affecting millions of people living in low-lieing areas who’s houses are flooded or, worse yet, who live in lean-to shanty structures that may be completely swept away.
If you’re interested in seeing more than just the postcard-perfect beaches of Philippines, please stick with me over the next few days as I share my photographs and stories from some of the most difficult areas of Manila on this blog.
At a practical level, I’ll try to provide the contact details of all the not-for-profit organisations I visit along the way so that you can connect up with any that strike a chord with you – they’re always very grateful for volunteers, technical skills, and practical and financial support. And if you’d like to support my efforts in any way, please drop me a line.
We need basic medical supplies!
After a quick visit to my local Retravision in Heathmont, I’ve picked up a suitable box to pack up two network servers for shipment to Global Impact in Davao, Philippines. They’ll be going by sea, and arrive there in January, after which I’m planning to make a trip over to set them up and train the local staff in the administration of them.
However, there’s likely to be a fair bit of empty space in the box so this is an opportunity to send over basic medical supplies as well – things like:
- Band-aids *
- Non-stick dressings *
- Gauze swabs *
- Steri strips / skin closures *
- Burn cream *
- Betadine *
- Pain killers (Panadol/Nurofen)Elastic bandages *
- Instant ice packs
- Saline steritubes *
- Antiseptic steritubes *
- Triangular bandages
- Scissors
- Splinter probe
- Emergency shears
- Forceps
- Safety Pins
- Gloves
- Emergency Blankets
- Eye bath
- Universal dressings*
- Stingoes
- Sunscreen *
* denotes “can never have too many at the base!”
If you’d like to contribute, no matter how large or small, donations of goods can be delivered to Mitcham, Heathmont or Warranwood by prior arrangement – just call Philip on 0400 878 630 and we’ll make sure somebody’s there to receive you – or small parcels can be mailed to PO Box 140, Mitcham VIC 3132.
When enough people make a small contribution, the nett result goes a long way! These supplies will help Global Impact to make a significant impact in the lives of many desperately poor Filipinos.
For more information about the Davao base, take a look at the web site of Glen & Sarah Biggs (Base Leaders).
Why experiences are key for non-profit organisations
For many years, fundraising (and, for that matter, commercial marketing) has operated on the basis that a simple transaction occurs when money changes hands, and the recipient of the money delivers a product or service in return. That ‘service’ may be the delivery of humanitarian services in poverty-stricken countries, as readily as it may be a material product. But the transaction wasn’t seen as really entailing any ‘involvement’ between the parties – once the non-profit received the money, they expected to go off and fulfill their obligations and not hear from the donor again until the next time they needed some more money.
A fascinating trend in Western consumerist societies may give us some insights to new approaches which could enhance and augment our traditional fund-raising models:
Experiences
The Baby Boomer generation were born in tough economic times, and were brought up to value a long-term stable job, home ownership, and financial security. By contrast, Gen X and Gen Y have become progressively more blasé about these traditional values for a range of reasons – long term job stability is not something they’re familiar with or could even comprehend, the relative economic prosperity of modern times likewise has ensured that they haven’t grown up experiencing severe economic hardship and the drive for financial “security” is therefore not as strongly entrenched, and home ownership is seen in some cases as unattainable and in other cases as a burden of responsibility which they’d rather defer until later in life.
With their relative financial security, Gen X and Y seem far more willing to defer or dilute serious saving and investment strategies and instead tend to go seeking a whole raft of experiences. This is possibly also tied to the fact that people are marrying later in life, and often stay at home with their parents until well into their 20′s, thereby reducing their financial commitments.
At the same time, these generations are showing an increasing interest in social, environmental and humanitarian issues, and frequently view contributing in these areas as a crucial element of their lifestyle, often choosing to lessen their workloads in order to have more time for advocacy and volunteering.
With a sympathetic generation of socially conscientious 20- and 30- somethings actively seeking opportunities to contribute, how can a non-profit best capitalise on this goodwill? By creating experiential partnership opportunities in which supporters become much more than donors – rather, they are responsive to opportunities to engage in a scenario and take away from it memories, emotions, and learnings that not only reward them for their contributions, but also help to mature and develop their philanthropic and volunteering bent.
The application of this insight will vary from organisation to organisation – in fact, there are limitless possibilities – but the starting point is being aware of this trend. Next time you’re brainstorming about how to increase the supporter base for your non-profit organisation, give serious consideration to how you might create opportunities for ‘experiences’.
