Marketing Management: Something to Mull Over for NPOs
Despite the registration barricades for NGO, many of them find their own way of survival. So competition is intensive for financial and material donations. “To convince people or the government to back your project and your organisation, you have to treat them like customers. Without influence and trust, you are rejected from donations. So running an NPO requires marketing, mass communication and promotion as well,” so did Ta put his theory.
Arrows swiftly moving around the screen, Ta Linfu (‘Child of Grassland’ in Mongolian), founder of Chinahope, was demoing all the images, videos as well as prizes of honour they collected over the past five years. He thoroughly understood the importance of marketing for an NPO. “To serve better you have to gather as much resource as possible, of course, based on a good brand image,” Ta asserted.
Chinahope was founded by Ta Linfu in 2003 intended to be a non-profit organisation calling on tour drivers to engage with environmental protection and education aids as they travel. Its members now cover across the country with its number skyrocketing from less than ten to over a hundred thousand. About 50,000 people and 30,000 vehicles have been involved in its organised activities during the last five years. Its glorious history includes two desert control centres respectively in Inner Mongolia and He Bei Province, one forest. Since 2003, major events concerning book donations have been launched among tour drivers, leaving their footprints in poor western areas. Totally more than 10,000 books have been contributed to over 30 schools in Gansu and Sichuan Province; an innumerable amount of commodity and stationery has been delivered to scores of schools in He Bei Province and Inner-Mongolia; and financial aids have been given directly to over 300 poor students in He Bei Province.
Marketing—A Weapon to Win Battles
“During the period our public service ads were broadcasted through bus-on-line, we gained steadfast progress in the volume of our volunteers and donations,” said Ta, “such is the case that underscore the critical role of marketing and branding in the development of China’s NPOs, especially given the monopolistic environment of China’s donation market.”
Despite the registration barricades for NGO, many of them find their own way of survival. So competition is intensive for financial and material donations. “To convince people or the government to back your project and your organisation, you have to treat them like customers. Without influence and trust, you are rejected from donations. So running an NPO requires marketing, mass communication and promotion as well,” so did Ta put his theory.
Mr Ta is a straight talker, keeping no experience to himself. In his mind, non-profit career calls for trust and cooperation among different organisations. “We have our own media partners,” added Ta, “including China Philanthropy Times, Cheyoo (an automobile newspaper), Travel TV, etc. There we have our columns. Our video clips were broadcasted through CCTV News Channel for a considerable period. And we are currently making a channel of our own. All these promotional resources have strengthened our voice.”
Thanks to its social network and media power, Chinahope is supported in various forms by Beijing Donation Acceptance Administration Centre. For the same reason, Beijing TV ardently proposed collaboration with Chinahope in donations to quake-affected areas.
Marketing—A Key to Win Hearts
The last decade has witnessed a boom of media industry; yet its unharnessed growth has not made any remarkable difference for businesses. The cost of advertisements shoots up, but their effectiveness goes all the way down the slope: corporate branding has hit the wall.
An alternative channel to maintain image, charitable events have gone into big companies’ sight. Johnson&Johnson, Microsoft, Coco Cola and some local companies began to take action. As a special PR activity, charity marketing brings favourable results to three parties: NPOs get their fund, businesses promote their brand and the public get the product while supporting charity.
In fact, the idea of ‘charity marketing’ has already been markedly highlighted on Chinahope’s website. “We take it very seriously,” said Ta, “we’ll plan some campaigns that reflect the company’s needs as long as they go with our tones. For example, if a company sets up a new 4S outlet somewhere, we may probably designate that place to host our event. To return the favour of sponsoring our event, we’ll communicate the company to the public via the media we’re familiar with.
“Cynics say NPOs are just like being used by businesses in this way. But I disagree,” Mr Ta insisted, “motivation scepticism drives real business into endless coma. Just because NPOs should not be enslaved by money doesn’t mean they should stay clear of rational business operation. Marketing is a must-learn lesson for NPOs. For charitable ideas and projects are their products and supporters their consumers.”
Serve, Not Only Give: Talk with Guo Bin on Migrant Schools
“For years we’ve been researching on our practice, which has become precious experience,” said Guo full of hope, “We realize the experience should be known to more people. So in collaboration with Narada Foundation, we’ll build a migrant school. There we’ll experiment on our experience. If it works, we’ll introduce our practice countrywide. The scheme has already been on agenda. I believe the future of migrant schools lies in professional and non-profit service, rather than donating to build more of them. Professional practice enables the migrant children to get the same level of education as urban children while, non-profit service would earn constant public attention to this problem.”
Stiffling heat triggered, rather than ruined,Guo Bin’s narration of the history and future of Beijing True Love Education Service Institute (shortly, BTLESI). His clear thought brought me to the fact that wisdom, on top of enthusiasm, erects non-profit career as a cause.
Since 1980s, millions of rural migrant workers flooded into cities, with the number climbing up to 150 million from the original two million. Tentative at first, migrant workers have long lived under the government’s tacit permission as part of urban society. Now they can reunite with their family in the city. More noteworthy are the children that immigrate with their parents into cities, now reported as many as 20 million. Against the backdrop of economic reforms, education is also brought to the table as a priority issue; however, the tightly-knit relation between schooling and permanent residence policy is dragging the foot of education popularisation, especially for rural workers’ children.
Back to 1990s, some organisations, including the government, took the first step to seek a way out. Some of them looked to public schools. But the heavy schooling fees or so called “sponsor charge” kept the kids at bay, which stimulated the rise of migrant schools. Featured by low cost those schools met the children’s need to some extent. But problems remain big.
“There are around 300 migrant schools in Beiijng, with only 60 or some officially granted,” said Guo, “Most of the rest are struggling desperately against inadequate teachers, unbalanced sheet, potentially illegal status, and frequent move from one location to another….Whatever their motivation, they should be respected for the efforts to boost education equality.”
Teachers are a common concern. Not all migrant schools have enough charisma to lure qualified teachers. Addressing such embarrassment is the commitment of BTLESI. Training its teachers, volunteers and students with scientific education ideas and newest information resources, and tuning the public into the process and result of the practice, the institute tries to grab a collective force to solve the children’s education problem.
“For years we’ve been researching on our practice, which has become precious experience,” said Guo full of hope, “We realize the experience should be known to more people. So in collaboration with Narada Foundation, we’ll build a migrant school. There we’ll experiment on our experience. If it works, we’ll introduce our practice countrywide. The scheme has already been on agenda. I believe the future of migrant schools lies in professional and non-profit service, rather than donating to build more of them. Professional practice enables the migrant children to get the same level of education as urban children while, non-profit service would earn constant public attention to this problem.”
White Paper on Education of Rural Migrant Workers’ Children, a book that sorts out the previous research on this subject and discusses the past, present and future of migrant children’s education, is the summer project for BTLESI. The paper is aimed at the public, hopefully to awake wider awareness of the issue; after all, education is a matter of all responsible citizens.
Methodologically a Volunteer Training Manuel is under way. Volunteers are the backbone of any non-profit organisation. Brimming with passion but inadequate in skills and experience, they often pay effort twice as much as is needed. Written by veteran teachers, volunteers and relevant experts, the book provides a guideline for volunteers to understand migrant schools, to communicate with the children, to organise activities, to cooperate with other teachers, and if need be, to visit their parents.
“Education concerns the hope of a nation. If 80% of its people are kept off education, the nation is heading towards the tomb. So I hope everyone of us could be part of this great cause,” prayed Guo in the end.
