Three Ways Non-Profit Organisations Can Use Marketing to Generate Awareness and Donations

Non-Profit organisations primarily exist to make a positive change to society. The term “Non-Profit” means their orientation is not towards earning profits, but to fulfil their mission, be it feeding the homeless, providing free education or medical treatment to the needy and so on.[1] They thrive on donations from the people who want to contribute to such causes in monetary terms. Any non-profit organisation faces two main problems: First, how to create awareness about its cause? Second, how to generate donations to fund those causes?

In this article, I will suggest three ways Non-Profit Organisation can utilise marketing to generate awareness and donations:

       i.          Create Realistic Campaign:
This means create a campaign which is able to depict the cause among target audience in a realistic way. For example, “Worldwide Breast Cancer (WBC)” created a campaign “Know Your Lemons”, a creative representation of breast cancer symptoms in the form of lemons in an egg carton, which went viral when it was shared by a cancer survivor who benefited from this campaign![2]      
 

     ii.          Choose the Relevant Medium:       
Once a Non-Profit has designed a creative campaign, how will they disseminate it? This can be done by identifying the relevant medium. i.e. a Medium of which your Target Audience is active user. Social Media is a powerful platform to reach out to target audience at a very low cost compared to traditional media (like Print, TV, Radio), which fits into keeping the operating costs at minimum possible for the non-profits. Another benefit of using Social Media is that the “Share” options on different Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter etc., add a viral dimension to it, which aids in spreading information and increasing awareness.

   iii.          Add Persuasive Call-To-Actions    
Whether a Non-Profit runs its campaign on Traditional Media or Social Media or on both depends entirely on its objectives and budget; but one thing which is essential and sets apart message of one Non-Profit from the other is the usage of appropriate “Call-To-Actions”.

In the example shared earlier in this article, despite the tremendous success of this “Know Your Lemons” campaign, WBC (the Non-Profit behind this campaign) still found difficult to attract sufficient amount of donations[3] because nowhere in the campaign, in its image do you see any indication of this charity asking for any donations! Or even any claim that it is a non-profit! So, using such call-to-actions along with easy options to donate (like by online transfer, digital wallets, PayPal etc.) is essential for a Non-Profit to generate sufficient donations.

Finally, it is about the consistency and persistence of a Non-Profit, which will take it places. If the cause is something people can relate to, and the Non-Profit does it well to convey its message, it will create both the awareness about its cause as well as attract donations to sustain itself towards its goal.

[1] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/marketing-non-profit-organizations-747.html

[2] https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/how-one-woman-using-lemons-educate-world-about-breast-cancer.aspx

[3] https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/how-one-woman-using-lemons-educate-world-about-breast-cancer.aspx