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.”
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Thanks for the nice article about non-profits. It’s good to see an increase in the amount of social and community outreach efforts by major corporations. They certainly have much deeper pockets to dig into to help many good causes.
Looking forward to a better economy where companies of all sizes will be able to increase their philanthropy efforts.