Marketing communications of non-profit organizations

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,3, Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences (Internationale Betriebswirtschaft / Interkulturelle Studien), course: Marketing of non profit organizations, language: English, abstract: Given the explosion in the number of non profit organizations over the past years and the fact that there are no signs of a slowing of growth in this area (Sargeant, 1999a: 8) the competition is getting fierce. Due to the intangibility and immateriality of most non profit services, marketing communication plays a central role to gain differentiation and thus, competitive advantage. Communication is used to draw attention to causes, to raise funds in order distribute it to those in need or to promote activities (Kotler, 2005a: 27). To carry it to an extreme, in some cases, such as raising funds for disasters, the effectiveness of marketing communication can even decide upon life or death.
In the following research the marketing communications of the non profit organizations World Vision and Terre des Hommes will be compared, whereas key differences or similarities will be highlighted. Furthermore the paper aims to evaluate their respective approaches with respect to the theoretical ideal in marketing science. In order to attain these goals, a series of steps are required in advance. First, a brief outline on the organizations will be given. This step is followed by an overview over the organizations respective target audience, communication objectives and tools, whereas key differences or similarities will be highlighted. Based on those findings, the overall marketing communications will be appraised according to which extent their efforts are matching with preset objectives as well as with the theoretical ideal in professional marketing science. In the final section conclusions will be drawn and future recommendations will be provided. The research will be based on diverse marketing literature related to the topic. Additionally, data obtained from the international websites of the organizations and interviews will be considered in our study.