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Lessons from the Past 115: Bad Marketing of Good Causes
Walter Vieira 15 November 2024
Economy & Nation
Many years ago, there was an article that appeared in the US press under the title of ‘Why can’t you sell brotherhood like soap?’ What it meant was can we sell causes and non-profit organisations (NPOs) in the same way as selling products like detergents, soap and shampoo?
 
As more and more causes are being marketed in India, this subject is becoming more important. There is the Cancer Aid Society, the WWF for Nature, the Spastics Society, Home for the Blind, HelpAge, CRY, Consumer Education and Research Society and many, many others. They have all survived these many years with large donations from generous benefactors. However, with increasing competition for charity funds, every NPO is coming 'under the squeeze'. 
 
The recent government notification, making it difficult to operate under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), for donations from outside India, makes matters even worse. All NPOs will have to learn how to survive in this new and difficult environment.
 
In developed countries like US, most NPOs are run very professionally and virtually in the same style as commercial organisations. Most times, this is not so in India. Often, the problem starts at the very top. Top management in NPOs feel that they are doing a favour by working there, that they accept a small honorarium which is a fraction of what they would have got had they have been in the corporate world and that they are making big sacrifices for a cause! There is no denying any of this.
 
Most times, this also spills over into a problem of greatly inflated egos. Many NPOs are therefore run like a personal ‘fiefdom’. They will brook no interference. They will accept no contradictions or alternate suggestions. Their writ becomes law.
 
The result: There is a lack of professionalism and a total lack of inputs of specialisation. The whole operation is run without setting goals, without short term and long term plans, without budgets which are taken seriously, without an accounting system which is transparent and accounts presented to all stakeholders at regular intervals, just as is done in a commercial venture. 
 
There is also great scope for resultant synergetic action from coordination between different NPOs.
 
For example, population control and environment protection are closely related. One affects the other. Children’s welfare and literacy are closely linked. Yet, management in these areas will compete with each other, rather than cooperate. Egos of top management in each organisation will act as barriers to cooperation. Each wants to take the credit and hog the limelight. While this is understandable in the corporate world (and even this is changing), it is a pity that these attitudes of conflict rather than cooperation exist in NPOs.
 
I have been going through the vision statements of some NPOs. I find them complex and longwinded—they seem stilted and steeped in commercialese. It would seem that these NPOs have taken the worst from the commercial world, like complex vision statements and rejected the best, which are specialisation, professionalism, sound marketing and systematic accounting. 
 
Vision statements need to be brief, understandable, quantifiable and elevating—especially in an NPO where it is the business of marketing causes. A good example of what it should be is John Kennedy’s famous stated vision - “In my term as President, we want to put a man on the moon.” 
 
An NPO needs to have such a vision - simple, direct and ambitious.
 
A common error is that NPOs want to be all things to all people. They feel that every person is a potential contributor to the cause. But every person is not. Every NPO has to have a certain audience focus. There has to be an understanding of marketing principles—of market segmentation; cause differentiation; cause positioning.
 
There are causes that appeal to the rich, some others appeal to the upper middle class There are causes that appeal to women more than to men; to older people more than younger; to millennials and not Gen X. One must do psychological and sociological research in order to identify target segments which will help conserve effort and resources.
 
And there is more that NPOs need to learn or relearn if they are to efficiently play a role to make this a better world.
 
(To be continued)
 
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)
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