Professional Fundraiser, Marketing, And Public Relations For NGOs: Advantages And Disadvantages

The Emergence of a need for Professional Fundraising in NGOs

Question:

Discuss about the Ngos Need Highly Professional Fundraisers, Marketing Teams And Public Relation Lobbyist. Argue The Pros And Cons Of The Said Proposition.

Non-government organizations or as is also said not for profit organisations, are formed to basically help the needy, poor, women empowerment, deal with child abuses of various kinds etc. They ensure upliftment of the society in a sustained manner and across the borders as well. These organizations are focussed on particular tasks and the participants are individuals who have a common interest. The NGOs’ main work is to bring the various issues and problems of the citizens in the eyes of the government so that the government can take certain steps for the prevention of the same. However, the present day NGOs should look upon upgrading their internal technical competencies immediately. NGOs work upon the funds they receive as charities from the various organizations and individuals and are very high on maintaining public relations. But globalisation has led to the emergence of a need of better fundraising techniques which is more professional in nature, a team who could market about their NGO in a more attractive manner so as to attract more people to become their members and also help in receiving huge amounts of charity and also successful in maintain high end public relations (International Institute of Sustainable Development, 2013). The said essay discusses upon the advantages and disadvantages of the said proposition i.e. the need of the NGOs of professional fundraisers, marketing teams and public relation lobbyists.

Fund raising in a more professional manner has become very crucial for all NGOs because of the increase in the quantum of the NGOs. Earlier people had very less choice for giving donations, but nowadays the numbers of NGOs opened have increased. Since these are not for profit organizations, hence they do not have profits generated which they can plough back and carry out the work of their organization. Thus the NGOs are highly dependent upon the funds they receive from the donors. Therefore, due to the same, the need for professional fundraisers has become very important, but unfortunately it also calls for various disadvantages also along with the benefits it has to offer.

Planning various fundraising events on its own by the NGOs can pose various challenges as well along with the benefits it has to offer. Since the fundraising procedures are basically putting up of events which needs a lot of planning prior to execution as well as execution at a  highly professional level due to the growing competition, planning of any event on a big scale or a small one necessitates the attention of the people who would donate money and also to make people aware of the happening of the event by good advertisement gimmicks. However, the same is not possible without the help of a professional as they know how to attract the crowd and what to highlight in front of those who are willing to make a big donation for the organization (Cherico 2014). These professional fundraising teams would help to prepare a more convincing memorandum and prospectus which would help in collecting the funds more easily. However these benefits are there for the appointment of the professionals, but at the same time is the budget that the NGOs have in organising such events. It should cross the amount of funds received else such events would be of no economic benefit. The biggest disadvantage is the investment and the risk involved which is very high and whether the return would be good or not.

Challenges and Benefits of Planning Fundraising Events

However, the number of advantages it has to offer is many. First and foremost is that these professionals help the NGO get various corporate sponsorships which are a must for the successful union of any event specially for NGOs who basically do not have their own funds. It also helps to raise a huge quantum of money and that too within a very short period of time, which these NGOs would have find it very difficult to otherwise. Since these professionals are well versed with the kind of events which would attract the crowd, they would ensure that every penny is received back by the entity. Last but not the least, professional fundraising methods helps in branding a NGO which would help in raising funds in future as well.

NGOs are organizations that need to market their objectives and aim to the society so that they can procure funds as these are entities formed for not seeking any profit and hence work basis the funds received by the members and those willing to donate. Consequently they need to appoint professional marketing teams who would help to raise funds easily. Since NGOs generally run very low budget thus appointing marketing teams would turn out to be a costly affair for them, further to this if the said team is internalised then they have to assure to provide them with frequent training of the various developments which would help them to market in newer and better ways (Kenner, 2005). They cannot market their firms in a commercialised manner unlike the corporates. However more than the disadvantage of having a separate marketing team, the said prospect of the now NGOs need a separate marketing team since the competition is so high that if the marketing team is not well versed with fresh ideas then the competitors would be ahead and they would lack raising of adequate funds. Specifically, the benefits are more if the marketing team is not inbound and outsourced both monetary wise as well as experience wise. The internal team may lack the required expertise as they have a significant learning curve which the outsourced marketing teams do not as they have experience in their kitty (Arora, 2016). Thereby to fight the pros and cons of having a marketing team from the perspective of a NGO, they should appropriately have a mix of both internal as well as outsourced.

NGOs are entities that require Professional Marketing Techniques

Lobbying is a rapid emergent ground that is intimately associated to public relations as the role of lobbyist is to manipulate and persuade the legislators, by means of the skill of affiliation on behalf of organisation’s view point on different problems. NGOs are basically formed with a mission in their mind such as educating the crowd about various issues and how to deal with the same (Saylor Academy. 2012). Lobbyist in public relation has gained importance as they make efforts on behalf of the NGOs in circulating and propagating civic information, convincing the people to adopt those views of the NGO with the usage of press as an agent and asymmetric public relations and the usage of symmetrical public relations so that funding from various donors can increase as well as funding from the government (Kennerknecht, 2017). Generally those who form NGOs are very influential people such as former government workers or employees and there way of lobbying public relation is partnering with the various leaders such as political and social to fulfil their aims and the initiatives. Although it is very beneficial as it helps these NGOs to seek help and funds very easily, but the disadvantage of the same is that these influential people often try to take undue advantage of their position and utilise these NGOs for siphoning of their funds (Howard, 2014). Unfortunately the main aim and goal of forming a NGO gets defeated as soon as such lobbyist get into the picture. Thus even though they are helpful in making people aware of the various issues being dealt by the NGOs, but their need for funds make these NGOs as well also to indulge into such manipulations and laundering of funds.

Conclusion

Thus the fact that these NGOs will succeed in this competitive world only via proper professional attitude towards raising of funds rather than depending upon their traditional methods of knocking at various doors, ensuring that the marketing team is well versed with the requirement of the present hour and the fact that outsourcing brings with it experience as well with knowledge and lobbying the public relation since it is very difficult to get through influential people otherwise and without them also it becomes difficult for the NGOs to do branding of their entity and procure funds to meet the cause of the organization cannot be denied. But further to this one cannot even ignore the darker side of the same wherein appointing of professionals would hit the budget part of the NGO, the outsourcing of the marketing team is not the sole solution and thus a mix is very important and along with the same maintaining a parity between the two i.e. internal and external team is a difficult task and last but not the least, lobbying public relation may at times defeat the whole purpose of forming a NGO. Thus even though adoption of these methods are seemingly becoming a must for all NGOs due to the immense competition, yet they should adopt only after analysing both sides of the coin so that the organization is not in a lost position.

References:

Arora,S., (2016), How Marketing and Communication Strategies can help NGOs achieve Fundraising Success, Available at https://www.fundsforngos.org/civil-society-2/how-can-marketing-communications-strategies-help-ngos-achieve-fundraising-success/ (Accessed 13^th September 2017)

Cherico,C., (2014), Challenges and Benefits of Non-profit Event Fundraising, Available at https://trust.guidestar.org/blog/2014/03/25/challenges-and-benefits-of-nonprofit-event-fundraising/ (Accessed 13^th September 2017)

Kenner,K., (2005), 5 Outsourcing advantages for your marketing team, Available at https://grasshoppermarketing.com/5-outsourcing-advantages-for-your-marketing-team/ (Accessed 13^th September 2017)

Kennerknecht,M., (2017), Is PR the New Lobbying? Available at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-kennerknecht/is-pr-the-new-lobbying_b_8983516.html (Accessed 13th September 2017)

Howard,E., (2014), 10 things you need to know about corporate- NGO partnerships, Available at https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/nov/24/10-things-corporate-ngo-partnerships (Accessed 13th September 2017)

International Institute of Sustainable Development, (2013), The rise and role of NGOs in sustainable development, Available at https://www.iisd.org/business/ngo/roles.aspx (Accessed 13th September 2017)

Saylor Academy., (2012), Mastering Public Relations: Chapter 10: The Practice of Public Relations, Available at https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-public-relations/index.html (Accessed 13th September 2017)