A few blogs here have discussed the brand maintenance and corporate image functions that good PR practice can bring to a company in a competitive commercial marketplace. I would like to make comment on this issue of brand competition within the non-profit or charity sector.
It seems that charities can no longer rely on obtaining support from the public simply on the grounds that they are raising funds for ‘a good cause’. With so many organisations with varying but equally good causes, competition for public support is perhaps even more fierce than the commercial market place. Added to this, considering the tough financial climate, this competition will be even greater, with the public struggling to make ends meet for themselves before even considering donating to charity. The PR and fundraiser people within this sector have no doubt faced a tough year of brainstorming new strategies to obtain the public’s financial backing.
It is quite timely then that PRWeek and Third Sector have recently published research into this area of voluntary sector branding. Having conducted over 3,000 interviews with people to investigate awareness and trust of organisations within the charity sector, The Charity Brand Index 2009 has been published outlining the top 100 non-profit organisations in the eyes of the public. Surprisingly, it is the first study of its kind to provide evidence of the effectiveness of the PR work of these individual charities, coming as an indication that more focus is needed on developing communication work for non-profits.
The organisation ranked number 1, Macmillan Cancer Support, was reported as being highly familiar to the public, with their work being viewed in the most positive light over other charities including the various other cancer charities such as Cancer Research and Marie Curie Cancer Care. Macmillan have in fact revolutionised their communications teams UK wide in the past year, now operating with 11 communication staff in total across all avenues through which the charity works. Having developed strong new media channels on Facebook and Twitter has also helped to improve the charities public image and overall presence within the crowded non-profit market, inevitably granting them more support.
As the non-profit sector continues to grow and be increasingly viewed in terms of a competitive marketplace I believe the communication work of these organisations will only become more important. As the publication of this report indicates, it is a growing area of PR that cries for more research and hopefully exciting employment opportunities!
Yes, non- profit organizations are part of our day by day and they have to deal with its particular environment, which resembles to a profit organization. I’m quite interesting about this topic, because it seems to me that just the “big brands” as MacMillan Cancer Support have the opportunity to manage their communication. But something is clear: first of all they have to recognize that communication management is important for the organization, no matter the size or the amount of money that it has.
ReplyDeleteI want to mention that now we are living some kind of CSR trend within the Agencies of Communication, which want to have within their clients any NGO. That makes the introduction to potential clients much more attractive, and of course, let them to develop their creativity as much as they want, without being as restrict as with the average and profit companies. In my opinion that’s really scary. That means that they just want to work with non- profit organizations for their own interests, even to win some prizes. Here you can watch a grotesque commercial that was made by one of the best agencies, DBB Brasil, for WWF (which never approved the campaign). Apart from that, the agency presented the commercial in a competition in New York and surprisingly, they won.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz0UWnqbcPA
If NGO’s aren’t alert, they can loose all their credibility.
Yeah I agree Cristina, partnerships with non-profits for improved CSR are worrying and make me more sceptical over CSR programmes! Teeerible advert!
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