NGO’s and Charities – How They Might Raise More Money
A reader has sent through the following question about raising money for NGO’s and charities. “I am involved in an organisation that is like an NGO, but the work we do is charitable, we give pro bono legal services to people on remand and who cannot afford bail, let alone a lawyer. We get lawyers to take up the jobs, but we need money to run the programme. How do i get people to see past the NGO tag and support us as they would a charity? People in this part view NGO’s as being hugely donor funded, but ours is a christian outfit that so far only gets support from one christian lawyers fraternity. How do we get other donors and members of the public interested in donating to our organisation?”
This question got me thinking. The reader does face an interesting problem and i think that approach to the problem is to think about it like a for profit business and to think about it in terms of what they would do if faced with a similar problem.
I guess the bottom line is that you are struggling in generating enough revenues to cover the costs of the business. I therefore see this as a true marketing problem where you need to communicate the product (what you do) to the potential purchasers and get them to understand the benefits (ie doing good and feeling good about it) if they invest in the product.
I would therefore start by saying who are the most likely customers for your product – ie who are the people that are most likely invest in your organisation. The simplest way to do this is to look at who has already invested, group them logically and then identify who else should be in the most popular groups and then you need to target them with your message.
Now the next question is what is the offer? Traditional marketing is all about feature, function, benefit. So what are the features of what you do, how do you do it and what is the benefit to me if i invest in your business. Now your challenge is a little bit more difficult as you are selling a service or an experience. I guess the key benefit for someone investing in your business is feeling good and feeling like they are helping those that are less fortunate. How do you codify this into a message that when someone hears your message, they will donate. The way i would approach this is to look at how successful charities do their marketing and then take the best ideas and use them as a basis for your marketing.
Once you have taken this approach it then comes down to execution. Now i am not aware on how much normally is donated, however you should look at either direct mail (for small amounts), telesales (for medium amounts) or field sales (for large amounts). This is something that will be tailored to the situation.
For me, the bottom line is that it doesnt really matter if you are a for profit, NGO or charity, the issues are very similar and the approaches should also be very similar.
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Simon, some thoughts for your reader on NGO’s and charities.
I agree with you 100% about approaching it from a business perspective, although the “product” may differ the strategy and process is very much the same.
I cut my teeth in marketing funnily enough with an NGO with charitable status and my work as a community educator and PR manager too, many moons ago, had a significant thrust towards raising funds – quite often to ensure I still had a job next month so the incentive was evident. It was hard work until we looked at it from a commercial aspect and ended up actually introducing endorsed commercial services such as insurance, discount products to our constituent membership being retired and ageing people. We received a commission on the products sold that we endorsed and also being a member of our organisation was required in order to obtain the discounts so we gained not only income but our membership grew from 1,500 to 12,000. Now I am not saying this is the way to go for our reader’s organisation but it made us think outside the “not for profit” square and we became more self reliant having the commercial aspect fund the social work we did.
So why do we donate / support?
Individual people donate not only because it is a good thing to do but quite often it has in some way relevance to them, whether personally or part of their employment, thus engaging them. It’s like any marketing – for you to tune in to the message and the medium, you must relate to it.
Corporate donations / sponsorship are quite often made not only because they are good corporate citizens but to be quite blunt there is some ROI. Cause related marketing is very much a part of many companies’ strategy – What’s in it for me?.
Given the above, lets have a look at the organisation at hand based on limited knowledge
Firstly let’s put the end users of the service aside. From a commercial sense can we match the supporters of the cause up. I.e.: I haven’t met too many lawyers who are hard up for a bickie so what if we were to attract sponsors who at the end of the day are wanting to market to the lawyers who are supporting the cause. Say a BMW or such. The organisation promotes the company that supports the cause to its supporter base.
Here’s another angle – remember the relevance. Well, why not engage all legal firms in the area your organisation operates, but don’t target just lawyers and not just those who give up their time pro bono. I’m sure there are staff members of these firms, clerks, admin people who are Christians, they also work in the legal industry so there is more relevance and thus engage them – they feel individually, as a team and as an industry that they are contributing. Even the partners of the firm, if they can’t give their time professionally perhaps they can make a donation. Our company has casual dress days, etc , etc that as a team we get behind and donate to.
So if the organisation was theoretically called “Lawyers for Justice” rename it “Law for Justice” – all of a sudden you have engaged a whole industry not just a single part of the profession and everyone feels involved and a part of a cause they can relate to in their day to day work whether judges, lawyers, clerks, admin staff, court officials.
Perhaps some of these firms can in turn engage some of their suppliers to contribute. Build a recognition program around supporters and donors. The statistics show that people will buy from companies that support causes they are associated with.
You are also now building up a supporter base that is perhaps attractive to other corporate sponsors
This may or may not suit your charter or company beliefs but I know thinking more commercially and taking the business approach Simon wrote about will result in greater benefit
I hope this helps in some way
Good luck with a great cause
John
I run an NGO in india,bihar, St.Sophia Women’s & Children Deplopment Society. till 5years Ago but till now i did’t get any amount to do work.
send me mail how i get money,and how we do to do for better future for whome we want to work.
thanks & regards
Alexander Seraphim
St.Sophia Women’s & Children Deplopment Society
Patna,bihar
India