Why do charities need to market themselves?

As Professor Adrian Sargeant describes in his very excellent book, just as the origins of marketing can be traced back to the earliest forms of trade, non-profit marketing goes back in time.  14th century monks at a Cistercian monastery in Austria wrote a marketing and fundraising handbook that even included 22 model letters explaining how to apply the approach. 
 
The core purpose of marketing is to  understand and create value for the customer.  In the not-for-profit sector the concept of ‘customer’ is complex as there is a diverse range of customers.  This can include the people who use or benefit from services, the communities in which they work and the public bodies and individuals who fund or support services.  Understanding what will create value for those organisations and people who can offer non-financial and financial resources that can be deployed in support of your mission is critical.  You have to be innovative in bringing yourself to the attention of your target audience as you need to communicate your values and to find ways to generate trust and commitment.  Trust and commitment are essential in order to raise income to fund mission related work, shine a spotlight on your areas of focus and inspire other people to take action too.  It’s not just one way though – people have to feel that they’re getting something back from the support they give your organisation and your cause. 

 Marketing implies a customer or donor focus, in addition to some elements of a market orientation (by which I mean profit and competition).  Although some people may think that these concepts are not applicable to the third sector, they absolutely are.  Non profit organisations need an excess of revenue over expenses in order to survive and deliver on their charitable objectives, and charities definitely compete with each other in terms of persuading people to give their time, money and other resources.
 
That’s the theory. Just to give a practical example, ActionAid’s mission is to eradicate poverty and injustice. 70% of the world’s poor are women and they are subject to such discrimination that they experience greater hardship and have fewer rights than their male counterparts.  We undertook a marketing campaign earlier this year called Get Lippy to highlight these issues and show how we can all be part of the solution.  We raised funds, increased awareness of the issues with government and the public, and enabled UK supporters to exchange messages of support with women in developing countries.   One particular woman in India who had been the subject of an acid attack made an emotional video that she sent back to our UK supporters saying that she didn’t realize that anyone else knew about her plight never mind caring about it enough to take action to bring about change. 
 
The campaign was a great success and illustrates our multi-faceted approach to measuring return on investment.  It is easy to measure money raised bearing in mind the costs of the campaign.  It’s easy to measure organizational efficiency, and there are numerous ratios and indicators to demonstrate this.  We also measured the success of Get Lippy in terms of the way in which we engaged with senior politicians over the issues, brought the issues to the attention of our target audiences, created a sense of solidarity between supporters and people in developing countries, and galvanized people to take action