It has always been one of the most important aspects of successful nonprofit management and one of the least understood, as this article from Joanne Fritz notes.
An excerpt.
“When I started working in the nonprofit world, marketing was a dirty word. No, really!
“The one person who changed that perception was Philip Kotler. His book, Strategic Marketing for NonProfit Organizations, was an eye opener for those of us who were struggling to find ways of making our nonprofits relevant to a world gone mad with its love of things.
“I don't remember exactly how I stumbled upon Kotler's book, but it opened a new world. I learned that marketing did not equal "selling" but, as Kotler explains, "Marketing and selling are almost opposites. Hard sell marketing is a contradiction...Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. Marketing is the art of creating genuine customer value. It is the art of helping your customers become better off. The marketer's watchwords are quality, service, and value." Q&A by Kotler.
“Kotler understood the "third sector." In an early article, he said:
"In most societies of the world, economic activity is a function of the actions and interactions of a profit sector and a governmental sector. The American economy, however, contains an important third sector made up of tens of thousands of private, non-for-profit organizations....
"This strong third sector constitutes a middle way for meeting social needs, without resorting to the profit motive on the one hand or government bureaucracy on the other. Third sector organizations tend to be socially responsive and service-oriented. They specialize in the delivery of social services that are not adequately provided by either business or government....While Big Business is healthy and Big Government continues to grow, the third sector...is in trouble."
“Kotler thought marketing was the answer. He pointed out that we were all doing marketing without realizing or acknowledging it, saying, "...all organizations do it whether they know it or not When this dawns on a nonprofit organization, the response is much like Moliere's character in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme who utters: 'Good Heaven! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it.'"
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.