No-budget marketing for NGO`s

Transcription

No-budget
marketing
for NGO’s
Pieter-Jan Tavernier
PREFACE
Many people have been of great value to me during the process of writing this paper. First of all I
want to thank Howest University College to give me the opportunity to go abroad for my internship
and let me experience an adventure as volunteer. I also want to thank Otra Cosa Network for the
same reasons. In person I want to thank Mrs. Linda Coopman to help me with the initial idea, Mrs.
Siglinde Masselis as supervisor for this work and as internship supervisor, as English teacher and
especially for her patience, kindliness and being humane. Next I want to thank Jaci Braga, my
internship mentor who gave me lots of advice, for the progressive internship supervisions, for her
help and open mind. I also want to thank all my friends in the OCN office. Juany who introduced me
to Otra Cosa Network and the many volunteers and Huanchacero’s who made my experience
unforgettable. Also a word of thank to Alessandro Strepparola, who was at my side at the start of my
international adventures. And last but not least a big thank you to my family, my girlfriend and many
friends for all the support.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
General information about NGO’s ................................................................................................... 8
1.1
Defintion .................................................................................................................................. 8
1.2
Types of Non-governmental Organizations............................................................................. 8
1.3
Revenues for Non-Profit Organizations................................................................................... 9
1.3.1
Internal sources ................................................................................................................... 9
1.3.2
External sources .................................................................................................................. 9
1.4
2
3
Voluntary work ...................................................................................................................... 10
1.4.1
Types of voluntary work .................................................................................................... 10
1.4.2
Motivation ......................................................................................................................... 11
General information about Marketing........................................................................................... 13
2.1
Defintion ................................................................................................................................ 13
2.2
Basic marketing theories ....................................................................................................... 13
2.2.1
Marketing mix.................................................................................................................... 13
2.2.2
The triple bottom line........................................................................................................ 14
2.2.3
The Target.......................................................................................................................... 14
2.2.4
The environment ............................................................................................................... 15
2.2.5
Maslow .............................................................................................................................. 15
2.2.6
Unique selling proposition ................................................................................................ 16
2.2.7
Communication mix .......................................................................................................... 16
No-Budget Marketing..................................................................................................................... 18
3.1
Source of information ........................................................................................................... 18
3.2
Internet marketing ................................................................................................................ 19
3.3
Trends .................................................................................................................................... 20
3.3.1
Search Engine Marketing................................................................................................... 20
3.3.2
Social media marketing ..................................................................................................... 20
No-Budget Marketing for NGO’s
3.3.3
Affiliate marketing ............................................................................................................. 21
3.3.4
E-mail marketing ............................................................................................................... 21
3.3.5
Usability ............................................................................................................................. 22
3.4
Below the line marketing ...................................................................................................... 22
4
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 22
5
Introduction to the guide for NGO’s .............................................................................................. 23
6
Where it all starts ........................................................................................................................... 24
7
8
6.1
What’s so special? ................................................................................................................. 24
6.2
Analyze the environment ...................................................................................................... 25
6.3
Mission and vision statement ............................................................................................... 28
The NGO and their service ............................................................................................................. 30
7.1
Structure of the organization ................................................................................................ 30
7.2
To be Registered or not to be registered .............................................................................. 31
7.3
Partners ................................................................................................................................. 31
Working with people ...................................................................................................................... 33
8.1
8.1.1
Recruitment websites........................................................................................................ 33
8.1.2
Target your target.............................................................................................................. 39
8.2
Volunteer management ........................................................................................................ 40
8.3
valuable information within reach ........................................................................................ 41
8.3.1
Volunteer database ........................................................................................................... 41
8.3.2
interviews and questionnaires .......................................................................................... 41
8.4
9
Volunteer recruitment .......................................................................................................... 33
Fairs ....................................................................................................................................... 42
Blend in with the crowd ................................................................................................................. 43
9.1
9.1.1
9.2
creating relationship with the environment ......................................................................... 43
Plan a local event............................................................................................................... 43
Campaigns in the area ........................................................................................................... 45
Howest University College 2012-2013
5
9.2.1
street art or guerilla marketing ......................................................................................... 45
9.2.2
Ambush Marketing ............................................................................................................ 46
9.2.3
Local publications .............................................................................................................. 47
10
The world wide web for No-budget marketers ......................................................................... 49
10.1
About blogging ...................................................................................................................... 49
10.2
The world of Facebook .......................................................................................................... 52
10.3
Tweeting on Twitter .............................................................................................................. 58
10.4
networking with Linked In ..................................................................................................... 62
10.5
Video Marketing .................................................................................................................... 64
10.6
E-mailing list .......................................................................................................................... 69
10.7
Free publicity ......................................................................................................................... 75
10.8
Google adwords..................................................................................................................... 78
10.9
SEO ........................................................................................................................................ 83
10.10 Are you checked in? .............................................................................................................. 84
11
It’s all about the money............................................................................................................. 86
11.1
Fundraising ............................................................................................................................ 86
11.2
Grants .................................................................................................................................... 88
11.3
Volunteers ............................................................................................................................. 89
12
11.3.1
Volunteer fee ................................................................................................................. 89
11.3.2
Volunteer fundraiser ..................................................................................................... 89
Attachements ............................................................................................................................ 92
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing is big business. In modern companies marketers have an influential role. The directors
provide them with a marketing budget and they start working. Marketing students learn all kind of
strategies and tactics in the field of marketing. They learn about different tools and about
communicating with them. They learn how to be successful.
However marketing is not that evident for all organizations. Many NGO’s don’t have the financial
resources to market their services. They want to be successful too. Without directors providing
budgets, they have to find other ways. This is the world of no-budget marketing. A challenge for
many marketers, but once they get the hang of it, a beautiful and creative subcategory of marketing.
Having worked for an NGO in this situation, I know it is hard to find a way, but still possible. Nobudget marketing isn’t the most popular area in marketing studies. This makes it hard to find
research. With this work I want to offer a guide for NGO’s. Directors or marketing managers can use
this guide as inspiration or guideline. The research is done for them, so they can work efficiently and
effective and focus on their core business.
The first part consists of general information, the basis for the guideline. Chapters with information
about NGO’s and Marketing are discussed.
The second part is the actual guide for NGO’s, based on own experience and other cases as
examples.
No-Budget marketing for NGO’s
PART 1 : LITERATURE RESEARCH
1
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT NGO’S
The first chapter contains basic information on NGO’s in order to give a general background. For
marketers it is important to know how an organization functions. They have to know what is possible
or hard to achieve for NGO’s and how to implement strategies and communication forms in these
kind of organizations.
DEFINTION
1.1
Defining the term NGO is difficult. NGO’s exist in many forms, with many purposes in different
societies. A comprehensive definition for Non-governmental organizations is the following:
“A non-governmental organization (NGO) is any non-profit, voluntary citizens' group which is
organized on a local, national or international level. Task-oriented and driven by people with a
common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen
concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political participation
through provision of information. Some are organized around specific issues, such as human rights,
environment or health. They provide analysis and expertise, serve as early warning mechanisms and
help monitor and implement international agreements. Their relationship with offices and agencies
of the United Nations system differs depending on their goals, their venue and the mandate of a
particular institution.”
Definition by http://www.ngo.org/ngoinfo/define.html
TYPES OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
1.2
A classification of the different types of NGO’s can be made based on several factors. By level of cooperation NGO’s can be grouped as follows (Sushant, 2010):
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Community Based Organizations: CBO’s works in specific communities in order to improve
standards or fight certain issues. They focus on improving society in all kind of ways: care for
the environment, access to healthcare, education and technology, etc.. CBO’s need local
community members in order to succeed. In third world countries community based
organizations are often run or stimulated by volunteers. (PBworks, 2008)
City Wide organization: These organizations have special purposes which often helps the
poor or underprivileged. It includes chambers of commerce and industry or coalitions of
business, etc.. (William, 1991)
National NGO’s: “include organizations such as the Red Cross, YMCAs/YWCAs, professional
organizations etc. Some of these have state and cuty branches and assist local NGOs.”
(William, 1991)
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
International NGO’s: Worldwide organizations fighting for causes worldwide. Mostly these
organizations fight for specific causes.
Ngo’s could also be classified in two groups (Mostashari, 2005):


Operational NGO’s: With their projects these NGO’s aim on change on small scale. To achieve
their goals they have to count on resources such as volunteer labor and financial donations.
Looking for financial resources and human resources and managing them often result in
complex organizations.
Advocacy NGO’s: This type of NGO tries to make the difference on large scale. They have or
want to have influence on politicians and the political systems. Advocacy NGO’s don’t rely on
volunteers or funds that much, but want to change public opinions and they fight for specific
causes.
The easiest way to distinguish different NGO’s is by activities or areas. Common areas are:
Community health promotion and education, emerging health crises, community social problems,
environmental causes, economic causes, development and women’s issues. (Mostashari, 2005)
1.3
REVENUES FOR NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
Non-profit organizations don’t gain profit, but this doesn’t mean they don’t have expenses.
Therefore they will also need some money coming in.
1.3.1 INTERNAL SOURCES
A non-profit organization can distinguish two main internal sources. Either by providing services or by
fundraising. Some organizations fulfill a role within society with some kind of service. Just like a
regular company it can earn money for a service. A regular money makes profit on this money. For
NGO’s this money goes to a cause or guarantees the continued existence.
The second kind of income is the money from fundraisers. A fundraiser is a form of financing in
which an organization and a donor forge a relationship aimed to provide the organization with
financial resources. This can take place in any form or concept. (Cuyvers, 2002)
In contrast to external sources, the organization doesn’t make any commitment in exchange for the
money they receive.
1.3.2 EXTERNAL SOURCES
The three most know external sources for NGO’s are subsidization, sponsorship or loans. Several
governments financially support NGO’s. Especially in prosperous countries organizations can count
on some support coming from the authorized institutions. In some countries specific laws are written
to allocate the money to organizations. (Cuyvers, 2002)
For other organizations money comes in through sponsorship deals. Sponsorship is “any commercial
agreement by which a sponsor, for the mutual benefit of the sponsor and sponsored party,
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contractually provides financing or other support in order to establish an association between the
sponsor's image, brands or products and a sponsorship property in return for rights to promote this
association and/or for the granting of certain agreed direct or indirect benefits.” (International
Chamber of Commerce, 2003) Sponsorship is in particular popular for sports organizations or events.
A general financial resource for both profit and non-profit organizations are loans. If an organization
is short of money and need quick money, they can ask financial institutions for support. Later on this
money has to be paid back.
VOLUNTARY WORK
1.4
In a society based on consumption people work for money, the more the better, to be able to buy all
sorts of goods. The concept of voluntary work doesn’t match with this idea. Some individuals have
other purposes. They give their time and labor for free, in order to achieve something, different than
gaining profit for themselves. This work is voluntary work.
There are no universal agreements on defining volunteering. Following is a working definition by
Susan J. Ellis:
“Volunteer, verb - To choose to act in recognition of a need, with an attitude of social responsibility
and without concern for monetary profit, going beyond one's basic obligations.” (Ellis, 2007)
1.4.1 TYPES OF VOLUNTARY WORK
Various types of voluntary work exist. They can be described by field or domain, by motivation or by
type of organization. In general voluntary work can be divided in three categories:



Mutual support: The first type and oldest type of voluntary work is mutual support. In
society people in difficulties have to help each other to survive, farmers help neighboring
farmers harvesting, people help with arranging funerals. Based on this mutual support
certain networks can arise. This network isn’t necessarily an NGO, but this is the foundation
and initial idea for many organizations. Mutual support is the radix of modern voluntary
work. (Govaart, 2001)
Services: Providing services is another kind of voluntary work. A well known example are the
numerous International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement volunteers. This type of
volunteers serve all kinds of organization, in prosperous countries or in developing
countries. In contrast to mutual support, the services don’t have a benefit for both parties.
The service is provided due to philanthropic reasons. (Govaart, 2001)
Social Contribution: Literally these are volunteers who contribute something to the society.
Some organizations fight for change in society, but they can’t do this on their own. These
organizations need volunteers or in some cases activists to help convince the mass.
Citizenship is a key element for social contribution. (Govaart, 2001)
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The most common type of voluntary work within small NGO’s is the provision of services. Volunteers
want to help and change short-term. Social contribution is will take place with bigger NGO’s. They
can rely on a base of fans and engaged volunteers.
1.4.2 MOTIVATION
Research shows that a quarter of the population of Western-Europe and North-America does
voluntary at least once in a year. Among them particularly people with a healthy social and economic
situation. Another significant group are churchgoers. Of course this result could be better, but it is
not bad either. (Govaart, 2001)
A lot depends on the situation of people. In extreme cases, like countries with a dictatorship
voluntary work is simply impossible. A second important factor is someone’s economical situation.
Some people don’t have the time to do voluntary work. They have to work for money in order to
survive and get food on the table for their family. In welfare states, this economical factor is no issue.
They don’t work for money, so there has to be another motive for them.
Volunteers have several reasons to work with NGO’s. Sometimes it is a combination of various
reasons.
In her book “The Volunteer Recruitment Book”, Susan J. Ellis gives a list of motivations volunteers
have to work for NGO’s. Following is a list of these reasons:






















to feel needed
to share a skill
to get to know a community
to demonstrate commitment to a
cause/belief
to gain leadership skills
to act out a fantasy
to do your civic duty
because of pressure from a friend or
relative
satisfaction from accomplishment
to keep busy
for recognition
to repay a debt
to donate your professional skills
because there is no one else to do it
to have an impact
to learn something new
for freedom of schedule
to help a friend or relative
for escape
to become an "insider"
guilt
to be challenged

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



















to be a watchdog
to feel proud
to make new friends
to explore a career
to help someone
as therapy
to do something different from your
job
for fun!
for religious reasons
to earn academic credit
to keep skills alive
because an agency is geographically
close
to have an excuse to do what you love
to be able to criticize
to assure progress
to feel good
to be part of a team
to gain status
because you were asked
to test yourself
to build your resume
to be an agent of change
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
because of personal experience with
the problem, illness, or cause

to stand up and be counted
The different types of organizations will attract different volunteers. Volunteers working in a
developing country will have another motivation than an organ player in the local church. With
information about the motivations of volunteers in an organization, a marketer can start working out
a strategy.
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2
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT MARKETING
A common misconception about marketing is that is all about selling products or worse, misleading
consumers to buy goods. Marketing is much more than selling. It is a broad concept including every
aspect of bringing together seller and buyer. In this chapter some of the basic ideas and theories of
marketing will be explained.
2.1
DEFINTION
Marketing is a popular field of study. It has influence on the economy and helps businesses to make
more profit. Therefore people specialized in it and tried to analyze every single bit of it. Many
definitions exist. Some are good, some lack important key aspects, some are written by amateurs of
marketing and others are written by authorities in the field of marketing.
In October 2007 the American Marketing Association Board of Directors approved the following
definition of marketing as being correct and complete:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering,
and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
(American Marketing Association, 2013)
2.2
BASIC MARKETING THEORIES
There is a long list of marketing theories and studies. The following subchapters introduce some
basics of marketing for NGO’s. The list is far from complete, but will give a basic idea.
2.2.1 MARKETING MIX
First thing all marketing students need to learn is the marketing mix. Not only does it help to build up
a good marketing policy, it gives an overview of different aspects in the field of marketing. A
marketer’s main task is to constantly find the right mix between different marketing instruments, the
4 P’s. The first four traditional P’s in the marketing mix are Product, People, Place and Price.
Product
In most cases the product of an NGO occurs in the form of services. This product or service per se is
important for a target, but there is more. Also the image of the organization or the customer service
is important. It is important for organizations to keep adapting their service to the needs of clients or
volunteers. (Verhage, 2005) Marketers have to find an attractive set of services to offer based on the
needs and wishes of the target. This without losing sight of the goals and purpose, the vision and the
mission of the organization. (Boer, 2010)
Price
The price is has a great influence on a sale. A low price can attract customers and a high price will
scare them. Prizes of competitors are an important factor as well, since people will compare them
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constantly. An organization can change this price in order to get a certain result. Do they want to
make a lot of profit to invest in the future or do they want to keep the price as low as possible to
attract customers. (Verhage, 2005) This is a delicate question for NGO’s. They need to survive, but
they can’t ask too much money for their services because it would be contradictory about their
vision. The price for goods can be easily measured making a sum of the costs of your organization
plus some profit. It isn’t simple to estimate the value of a service. A price in the case of certain
NGO’s isn’t always money. An example of a different kind of price is conquering fear or in the form of
time and energy. (Boer, 2010) E.g. an NGO only accepts volunteers to work for at least 1 month. This
may or may not cost money for the volunteer, but the commitment of time is a price the volunteer
has to pay too.
Place
The third marketing instrument in the marketing mix is the Place. Distribution would be a better
term, but unfortunately it doesn’t start with the letter P. Organizations should find the best way to
get their product or service with the customers. (Verhage, 2005) NGO’s can ask themselves what the
most effective way of “distribution” for their service could be. Will they use the internet or
intermediaries to reach their target. What is the best amount of offices and the locations of them?
Promotion
Promotion is basically the activity to communicate with the market to increase sales or the demand
for services. Only few services will sell itself, an NGO needs to communicate and convince possible
volunteers or customers about the benefits of their service. There are plenty of forms of promotion.
(Verhage, 2005)
2.2.2 THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE
Next to the 4 P’s of the marketing mix, there are 3 more P’s: People, Planet and Profit. These three
terms form the triple bottom line or TBL. This TBL measures how an organization acts Socially
(people), Financially (profit) and environmental (planet). John Elkington first brought up the term. It
should serve organizations to become socially responsible. The measurements make them work
towards certain results, so in case of the TBL to a better socially, environmental and financial
engaged organization. (The Economist, 2009)
2.2.3 THE TARGET
Determine the target is key for a marketer. An organization can offer the best service there is, but if
doesn’t respond to the needs and wishes of a target it won’t be successful. Therefore they should
spend some time finding out which exact group of people they aim for. Organizations operating in
the same field for several years will know their target based on their experience. For young
organizations this isn’t that obvious. They will have to do some market research. A less expensive
option is to see what targets of competitors are. With this knowledge they can decide whether to
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attract the same people or go the other way and choose a different target. This positioning can be a
strength. For example, NGO’s looking for volunteers mostly target young adolescents. This is the
obvious choice, but maybe a new service for bored retirees can be a success to.
Once a target is chosen, the organization can start adapting its communication, its offer and prices ,
etc..
2.2.4 THE ENVIRONMENT
Also important to take into account is the environment both internal as external. The most famous
tools to analyze the environment are the SWOT and PESTEL analysis and Porter’s Five Forces.
SWOT
A SWOT is an internal and external analyzing tool for your organization. SWOT stands for strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A marketer looks for every strength and weakness of the
organization (internal analysis). These elements are specific elements for one organization. Next the
marketer looks for opportunities and threats in the world around him (external). This applies to his
own organization as much as to his competitors. This analysis offers a good overview of possibilities
for the organization and shows what should be improved.
PESTEL
The second tool is the PESTEL model. It is an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, Technological,
Environmental and Legal factors. These factors describe the general environment of an organization.
With a PESTEL analysis a marketer perfectly knows where the difficulties or benefits in the
environment lay.
Porter’s Five Forces
According to Michael Porter’s Five Forces model there are five forces that Shape the completion in a
certain industry. This is less applicable for NGO’s since there is few completion amongst them. Some
have to compete against other enterprises though. Analyzing the elements can be helpful. There is
one obvious force in an industry and that is the “Rivalry among existing competitors”. Next to this
force there are four forces that come from outside the actual industry. These forces are “threat of
new entrants”, “bargaining power of buyers”, “threat of substitute products or services” and
“bargaining power of suppliers”. (Porter, 2008)
2.2.5 MASLOW
One of the most famous theories in psychology is Maslow’s hierarchy (or pyramid) of needs. An
important part of marketing is to offer services or products according to the needs of a target.
Marketers also use Maslow’s theory to understand what people are looking for in certain products,
what they can offer and how to bring the service to the target. (Verhage, 2005)
Maslow visualized his theory with a pyramid. The pyramid has five levels of needs: Biological and
physiological needs at the base, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs and selfHowest University College 2012-2013
15
actualization on top. These five levels can be divided in three other levels of motives. The first two
levels form the surviving motives, Belongingness and love needs and a part of esteem needs form
Social motives. The top of the pyramid forms growing motives. (Chapman, 2012)
This pyramid is used to position a product or service. NGO’s provide services or offer goods for all
different sorts of targets. So every NGO has to adapt its communication, offer and service to this.
2.2.6 UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION
The definition for USP or Unique Selling Proposition according to entrepreneur.com is the following:
“The factor or consideration presented by a seller as the reason that one product or service is
different from and better than that of the competition” (Entrepreneur, 2013)
Every organization should try to outstand the competition. To be successful an NGO has to find
something unique, that is only offered by them. Something, a certain element in a product or aspect
of a service for which consumers would choose the NGO. Having this USP can change sales or
services enormously. When communicating with a target, this USP can be a central element.
2.2.7 COMMUNICATION MIX
The communication mix is a term used for the combination of promotion tools. Marketers try to find
the right balance between all their different ways of marketing communication. The marketing
budget has a huge impact on this marketing mix. NGO’s without budget have a totally different mix
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than multinationals with millions to spend on promotion. The right mix will also depend on the target
and the strategy of an organization.
In the communication mix there are two different sections, depending on the goal of communication.
The first one is action communication, to increase sales on short term. The second one is theme
communication with as goal to influence the target on long term. Theme communication tries to
change or strengthen the attitude of the target towards the organization. Both action and theme
communication use different tools to promote the service or goods. This scheme shows what
possibilities exist for the different kinds of communication. (Verhage, 2005)
Publicity
Theme
Communicatio
n
Public
Relations
Sponsorship
Sales
Promotions
Marketing
Communicatio
n Mix
Temporary
Action
Communication
Action
Communication
Permanent
Action
Communication
Displays
Direct
Marketing
Communicati
on
Presentation
of the product
Packing
Personal
Selling
Once a marketer has chosen the exact way of communicating, depending on the goal of the
communication, he has to find out the best medium to reach the target. The most popular, but in
many cases also the most expensive media are the conventional media: magazines, newspapers,
sponsored magazines, television, radio, cinema, etc.. every medium has its pro’s and its contra’s.
Cheaper alternatives are found in below-the-line marketing. These are mostly non conventional ways
of communication. In the list of below-the-line marketing there is : Social Media Marketing, Mobile
Marketing, Ambush Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, etc..
17
3
NO- BUDGET MARKETING
Marketers can have the best ideas for a brilliant marketing strategy and marketing communication,
but without the necessary budget he won’t get far. Most small NGO’s don’t have the financial
resources to launch big campaigns or advertise in newspapers. They have to find another way to
reach the target. Preferably as cheap as possible. This is the field of No-Budget Marketing.
3.1
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
An important factor in No-Budget Marketing is the source of information. The way a customer or
potential volunteer gets in contact with an organization. Where he gets the information. This can
either be through own experience, the experience of a friend, PR, Commercial Media or Commercial
Partners of an organization or enterprise. It goes without saying that a person’ values his own
experience as highly credible, for he has seen everything with his own eyes and trusts on what he
knows. Also the experience of third parties will be credible. There is no benefit for this third party,
he just wants to provide someone with valuable information. This is where No-Budget Marketing
should focus on the most, since it is free. An organization that focuses on loyalty and customerservice, friendliness and relationships with customers will increase the happiness of customers. This
happiness will result in word of mouth publicity, which is costless. Commercial partners on the other
hand can promote partners to benefit from the deal. The information provided by this partner isn’t
credible and trustworthy of course.
Especially in modern times with a plenitude of goods and services, people have a lot of choice. It gets
hard to find the best option, because the products can be really similar. What really separates the
good from the bad organizations is the customer service and the relationship between a customer
and the organization. This also means NGO’s without a marketing budget can still increase their
success with some simple actions. (Burgers, 2013)
Deliver distinctive value for customers. Investigate the expectations and problems of customers.
Find what they are looking for and deliver the best solution. Adapt your services to the problems of
your customers. Don’t offer too much either. For an organization it is better to do one good job than
ten unfinished jobs. Look at what competitors do and find ways to do it better.
Exceed expectations. An organization should always try to exceed the expectation of customers. It
will amaze them and give them a good feeling. Every customer is an important customer. Aim for the
highest possible customer satisfaction. Communication is really important in this case. A marketer
needs to know what is bothering clients in order to get rid of the problems. Always try to offer the
best solution for customers. Sometimes this means to deviate from procedures. Reward customers
for loyalty and give them the attention they deserve. All those little actions will increase the
relationship and will result in a better publicity.
Invest in ambassadors. When an organization is exceeding expectations and offers high quality
service, it will create ambassadors. If these ambassadors bring in new customers, the organization
should notice this and reward the loyal customer. Make sure to thank your ambassador for every
single contact, not only if a sale is taking place.
18
Make an unforgettable first impression. An organization should work towards a high customer
satisfaction from the start. Don’t forget first impressions through the internet. The first contact, a
mail or telephone can be decisive. Customers can make a decision based on this impression, to go
through with possible deals or sales.
Give potential customers the chance to gain experience first. In order to give the best service from
the start, even before an actual deal takes place, an organization can give a period of trial. This will
improve contentment and a good first impression.
High
credibility
Own Experience
Experience of third
parties
Marketing- PR
No- Budget
marketing
Low Budget
Marketing
Commercial Media
Low
credibility
3.2
Commercial Partners
Budget
Marketing
INTERNET MARKETING
Next to this word of mouth publicity gained by a high customer satisfaction, organizations nowadays
have another option. The world wide web offers multiple options for NGO’s and their no-budget
marketing. An incredible amount of people use the internet. The following statistic demonstrates
how big the reach of online marketing could be. (Internetworldstats.com, 2013)
19
With the digital revolution also online marketing is changing. In the early years of the internet people
built static websites. These could contain information about an organization. This was a first kind of
E-marketing, using a website as a tool. Next came Web 2.0 followed by web 3.0. Interaction was the
new norm. People can now share and express their opinion, co create, find information but also
provide it. Especially with the rise of social media marketers saw major opportunities.
TRENDS
3.3
Some tools of e-marketing are more successful or easier to use. Think of the huge impact of social
media marketing, how many times we use a search engine. How many mails we send, etc..
3.3.1 SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
What would the internet be without Google? Search engines make or lives a lot easier. We don’t
have to remember difficult websites URL’s or try to guess all the time when we are looking for
something without knowing website in particular. People don’t think about it too much, but the
algorithm search engines use could influence our decisions drastically. If someone would look for the
keyword “car” and Google only shows Fiat, without providing information about other brands, then
this would probably change people’s perception about cars.
Marketers try to manipulate the algorithm, luckily not as extreme as in the car example. They change
the content on a webpage in order to get higher rankings on search engine search results. Changing
the content is called search engine optimization. Search engine marketing also includes advertising
trough sponsored links. Organizations pay to get their website on top of the list of search results in
order to attract more visitors to their website and their products.
3.3.2 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Since the evolution of the web to its current form, Social media became incredibly important. It
becomes hard to imagine a world without Facebook or Twitter. It changed a lot for internet users,
but also for marketers. It opens perspectives for marketing communication, access to information
and it is free. Social Media is more than just Twitter and Facebook. There are hundreds of forms. The
next image shows all options marketers have to receive information, communicate with customers
and maybe even create fans.
There is a enormous list of social media forms. A list of examples:
Social media based on:








Social networks
Niche networks
Customer service networks
Location
Video
Video aggregation
Documents
Events








Music
Wiki
Live Casting video and audio
Pictures
Social bookmarks
Comment and reputation
Crowdsourced content
Blog platforms
20



Blogs/ conversations
Blog communities
Micromedia



Lifestreams
Specific to Twitter
SMS/Voice
This image is an extract of 4.bp.blogspot.com.
3.3.3 AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate marketing is another popular trend in E-marketing. It is “A way for a company to sell its
products by signing up individuals or companies ("affiliates") who market the company's products for
a commission”. (Entrepreneur, 2013)
In other words, affiliate marketing is a kind of service that one company provides to an organization.
This service consists of offering space for advertisement on a website. In return the advertising
company gives a reward if a visitor comes to his website to buy his product.
It is an easy way to advertise for an organization. The affiliates do the job and you get the result.
Some companies specialize in affiliate marketing and perfectly know how to get your advertisements
to the right target. This way an organization can save a lot of effort and communicate with the target
through advertisements distributed by the affiliates.
3.3.4 E-MAIL MARKETING
21
E-mailing is one of the oldest services the internet provides and still is a very important part of our
daily life. Every e-mail address user has had one mail in his life with some publicity or a promotion.
People can subscribe for thousands of newsletters and every day new spam reaches your e-mail
account.
Organizations can use this easy to use and free tool the internet provides. They can use it to send
promotional e-mails, to send information about changes or latest news. By including a call to action
they might get the attention of new donors too.
3.3.5 USABILITY
Usability is getting important. There are millions of different websites online. It is hard for users to
find the right information amongst all these sources. Something that could help an organization to
be successful is usability of its website. To outsmart competition they have to increase contentment
and satisfaction amongst the users as they do in real life for customers.
Nielsen Norman group defines usability as this : “Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how
easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use
during the design process.”. (Nielsen, 2012)
When designing a website marketers should take 5 quality components into account: Learnability (Is
it easy for users to accomplish the basic tasks on their first visit?), efficiency (Is it easy for users to
perform tasks once they know the website?), memorability (When visitors come back to the website,
is it hard to remember how it works?) , errors (Is there a high amount of errors and what is the
consequence of these errors?) and satisfaction (Is it pleasant to use the website?). (Nielsen, 2012)
3.4
BELOW THE LINE MARKETING
The internet isn’t the only option for no-budget marketing. Marketers still use offline methods. Most
conventional methods can be really expensive though. That’s why no-budget marketers found other
methods. Below-the-line marketing opens new perspectives. Some of the most popular below-theline methods are: Sponsorship, sales promotions, public relations, personal selling and direct
marketing, guerrilla marketing and ambush marketing, social media marketing, etc..
4
CONCLUSION
Both the field of marketing and NGO’s are really complicated and divergent. There are various
possibilities for no-budget marketers and NGO directors to advertise and promote their organization
If the organizations have a strategy adapted to their structure, reason of existence, target, causes,
etc., a marketer should find a way to promote this with no or low costs. Key is not to lose overview
and to stay with the core values of an organization. Focus on the target, the volunteers in many
cases. And find a way in the big world of marketing.
22
PART 2: A GUIDE FOR NGO’S
Theory is something that you can read on the internet, in books or learn it in school. What makes
things interesting is putting the theory into practice. In this second part you will read more about the
practical side of marketing your NGO, step by step.
5
INTRODUCTION TO THE GUIDE FOR NGO’S
In order to fully understand the guide for NGO’s it is useful to know the base on which it is written.
First of all the reader should know that I wrote this guide, based on the experience gained by
volunteering as marketer with OCN, short for Otra Cosa Network. A Peruvian NGO based in
Huanchaco and registered in the UK and Peru. OCN is a small NGO without the financial means for a
marketing budget. The core business of OCN is looking for volunteers and offer them a variety of
projects to give them an excellent volunteer experience.
This guide could serve the organization the future marketers in the organization, so they don’t have
to reinvent everything. A quick look in this guide could help them be a source of inspiration for new
ideas.
The second thing readers should know is that the guide is build up according to the marketing mix.
The several chapters are based on one of the marketing instrument. There is a chapter based on
price:(all about the money) , product (NGO’s and their service), place( blend in with the crowd) and
promotion ( world wide web for no-budget marketers). But the guide will start with forming the base
of your strategy.
6
WHERE IT ALL STARTS
Whether your organization already exists for over twenty years or you have only just started, it is
important to analyse the environment and your individual place within that environment. There are
various ways of doing this. The most famous and most widely used models are the SWOT-analysis
and the PESTEL-analysis. Another very important thing to bear in mind while analyzing an
organization, regarding marketing, is the marketing mix. This mix is the combination of “product”,
“price”, “place”, “promotion” and additionally you can add “people”, “planet” and “profit”.
6.1
WHAT’S SO SPECIAL?
Before you start thinking about any aspect regarding marketing your organization, you should start
with the basics: the purpose and reason of existing of your organization. For a starting organization it
is really important to position yourself, for existing organizations it can be useful to check if you are
still on the right track. It helps you to define or redefine what you are and where you want or wanted
to go in the first place. (Plymouth Social enterprise, 2013)
Ask yourself ‘What do you want to be and how do you want the people around to see you?’. Look
at what is around you and what is missing in the environment. You don’t want to be the fifth school
in the same shantytown, unless you are really sure to outstand competition. Kids won’t show up,
because they already go to other schools. If you want start in area unknown to you, you might better
do some research or ask local communities what they think about your idea.
Ask yourself ‘Why do you want to start an organization anyway? What is your motivation?’. Do you
think you are needed? This is an important question, because if you are not, you are wasting valuable
time and money.
Ask yourself ‘How do you want to accomplish everything you have in mind?’. Is it possible and do
you have the right resources. Make sure you are prepared if things go wrong.
Once you have thought about these questions, you can start writing your mission and vision. If you
already have them, read them again and make sure you closely follow your own mission and follow
your vision too!
24
ANALYZE THE ENVIRONMENT
6.2
SWOT
A SWOT analysis is a useful tool to think about your organization. SWOT stands for strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are considered as part of an
internal analysis. Opportunities and threats are external and will count for all the organizations in
your environment or sector.
Strengths and weaknesses are the factors regarding availability of capital resources, personnel,
assets, your product or service’s quality and your internal structure. Within your organization, make
sure to identify which attributes allow you to generate a competitive advantage or make you stand
out from the crowd. On the other hand you have to be able to notice where other organizations do
better than you.
In order to find strengths and weaknesses, reflect on the over the following:









What advantages does your organization have?
What is your organization doing better than your competitors?
To what (low cost) resources do you have access?
What do you offer that society/the community is waiting for?
What is still up for improvement?
What should be avoided for the organization to work better?
Is there something about your organization people don’t like?
What reduces your organization’s efficiency or effectiveness?
….
Opportunities and threats are given facts that you will have to take into account. You can use them
to your advantage in staying away from trouble and difficulties. These elements affect you as well as
the other players around you. The more you play with them, the more competitive you will be.
To find out your environment’s opportunities and threats, reflect on the following:








Is there a tendency in your sector that you will have to bear in mind?
What is happening to the economy in general?
Is technology changing?
Are important regulations or laws changing or influencing your sector?
Are any interesting social patterns or lifestyles changing?
What are competitors doing?
Is there something that could stop your organization’s operations?
…
This is an example of a SWOT analysis. This will be different for every single organization, but it will
be useful for everyone.
25
Strengths:
• OCN has a lot of partners organizations.
• OCH has a local office in Peru and representatives in Europe.
• The organization offers accommodation and owns a volunteer house.
• The volunteer fee is relatively low.
• At the moment OCN has a good group of volunteers, which improves volunteer loyalty.
• OCN has its own projects, such as the skate ramp. It does not only have partners.
• Juany, our director is Peruvian. She knows the area and the community very well.
• …
Weaknesses:
• The structure of the organization is unclear for new volunteers.
• The directors live in the UK. This makes it difficult to discuss important things.
• New local management.
• Some volunteers only work 3 hours per day.
• OCN doesn’t use a selective recruitment procedure.
• OCH does not have substantial budgets.
• …
Opportunities:
• In general there is a growing awareness amongst youth, about problems in the world.
• A lot of Europeans want to go a year abroad before studying.
• Huanchaco is a paradise for surfers.
• Huanchaco is not as dangerous as larger cities ( E.g. Lima ).
• A lot of European or North-American universities offer the possibility to do internship in
NGO.
• South-America is attractive to travelers.
• OCN is the only NGO in Huanchaco.
• Volunteers meet tourists ( could be used to spread the word ).
• …
Threats:
• Not enough support from (local) government.
• Gap between Huanchaco and Cerito de la Virgen.
• Local priest doesn’t always support OCN’s plans.
• Volunteers come to enjoy weather and life, this sometimes distracts them.
• Morale and values, theft and robbery in South-America.
• Economical crisis, people tend to save their money
• ...
Once your organization’s SWOT analysis has been made, this information still needs to be used in
combining the different elements. (Gonzalez, 2012)
•
•
•
From the combination of strengths and opportunities, new possibilities arise. This shows the
most promising lines of action for the organization.
A combination of weaknesses and threats show your organization’s limitations. This can
create a warning: work on weaknesses in order to stay out of trouble.
Combining strengths and threats highlight a zone of risks. This isn’t necessarily bad. Tackling
a risk and doing this successfully leas to outstanding results. Be aware that this can turn out
bad as well.
26
•
By combining weaknesses and opportunities, challenges are stipulated. If the organization is
ready, weaknesses can be fought and opportunities used in order to find a new way to
success.
PESTEL
Another successful tool to analyze the environment and your place in it, is the PESTEL model. PESTEL
or PESTLE is an acronym of Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technical, Ecological/Environmental
and Legal aspects. This model is especially useful for NGO’s, because they often handle problems that
come to light when doing the analysis. This can help to see things more clearly and maybe find the
right solution or help positioning the organization.
The website www.pestel-analysis.com provides a useful list of factors to include in the analysis,
along with a database of information per country. This is not complete but helpful. As the lists below
show. This info can help to create a firm base to build on.
Political Factors:







Bureaucracy
Corruption
Environmental Law
Freedom of the Press
Government Type
Government Stability
Labour Law







Political Change
Political Stability
Regulation/Deregulation (NTB)
Social/Employment Legislation
Tariffs
Tax Policy
Trade Restrictions






Interest Rates
Inflation Rate (cost of capital)
Labor Costs
Labor Supply
Likely Economic Change
Unemployment Rate


Employment Law
Health and Safety Laws
Economic factors:







Business Cycle Stage
Consumers’ Disposable Income
Economic Growth
Exchange Rates
GDP Growth
Globalisation
GNP Growth
Legal Factors:



Antitrust Law
Consumer Law
Discrimination Law
27
The following list of factors is an extract of another website, ‘Rapidbi’. (http://rapidbi.com/thepestle-analysis-tool/ )
Socio-Cultural:


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





Consumer attitudes and opinions
Media views
Consumer buying patterns
Major events and influences
Ethnic/religious factors
Advertising and publicity
Ethical issues
Demographics (age, gender, race,
family size,)
Lifestyle changes









Population shifts
Education
Immigration/emigration
Health and living standards
Housing trends
Attitudes to work
Leisure activities
organizational culture
Changes to education system









Energy uses/sources/fuels
Manufacturing advances
Information technology
Internet access
Transportation
Waste removal/recycling
E-learning
Software changes
RSI




Stakeholder/ investor values
Staff attitudes
Management style
Staff engagement
Technical factors:










Research funding
Replacement technology/solutions
Maturity of technology
Manufacturing maturity and capacity
Consumer buying
mechanisms/technology
Innovation potential
Technology access, licensing, patents
Intellectual property issues
New discoveries
Research
Environmental factors:




6.3
Environmental issues
Environmental regulations
Customer values
Market values
MISSION AND VISION STATEMENT
Once you have been thinking about the reason for existence and purpose, the internal situation of
the organization and the external outlook of the sector, competitors and clients, you can start
writing or rewriting your mission and vision statements. These two statements will serve as a
28
simplified guideline for the organization. A proper mission and vision statement can be used as a
reference frame, whatever action the organization undertakes.
The mission statement clarifies the organization’s reason for existence, the values and the identity.
Make sure your mission statement is short and clear. It is sufficient to write only 4 to 5 sentences. If
the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ have been considered carefully, the purpose and reason for existence, try
to compress them in one clear sentence. Supplement it with the organizational key values and target.
Now try to include all stakeholders and the presentation manner.
This is an example of a mission statement of an NGO, the Northland Foundation.
( http://www.northlandfdn.org/about-us/northland-mission-values.shtml )
The Northland Foundation is a resource for people, businesses, and communities in Northeast
Minnesota working toward prosperity through economic and social justice. Our purpose is to
strengthen families, grow a sustainable regional economy, cultivate leadership and philanthropy, and
foster respect for all. Through our grants to nonprofits, loans to local businesses, KIDS PLUS Program,
and other special initiatives, the Northland Foundation is building a strong foundation for the future
of our region.
The vision statement describes where the organization wants to go to, be, in the future. It can
encourage everyone to work in the same manner towards the same goal. It also states the projected
future identity, the factors, important to realize these goals. Be ambitious, as this definitely inspires
the people who read the vision statement. Make it powerful. Don’t say: “I want 20% of the children
literate in some years”. Strife for an amazing, but still realistic goal, a goal worth fighting for. Find a
way to differ from competitors. By writing a good, honest and clear vision statement, you can attract
and inspire a lot of volunteers, donors or employees.
This is an example of a vision statement by an NGO, the WWF. ( http://worldwildlife.org/about )
We seek to save a planet, a world of life. Reconciling the needs of human beings and the needs of
others that share the Earth, we seek to practice conservation that is humane in the broadest sense.
We seek to instill in people everywhere a discriminating, yet unabashed, reverence for nature and to
balance that reverence with a profound belief in human possibilities. From the smallest community
to the largest multinational organization, we seek to inspire others who can advance the cause of
conservation.
We seek to be the voice for those creatures who have no voice. We speak for their future. We seek
to apply the wealth of our talents, knowledge, and passion to making the world wealthier in life, in
spirit, and in living wonder of nature.
29
7
THE NGO AND THEIR SERVICE
Mission and vision give you guidance and orientation, but an organization needs more than that. If
you want to be effective and make a change, there are other requirements. You need structure,
there are legal requirements and you may need partners.
7.1
STRUCTURE OF THE ORGANIZATION
In order to function efficiently, a clear organizational structure is paramount. It is not recommended
to have an organization without a leader. Some people may think one single leader may be too
totalitarian, but having a single person making important decisions and carrying responsibility in
difficult times can be essential. Of course this position can be shared and the top of the organization
can form a board of directors. If this sounds to severe, just give it another name, like the Otra Cosa
Network that calls them trustees, which sounds more familiar and perfectly fits in the character of
the organization. The essence is nevertheless the same. Mostly founders or the people with the
initial idea will form the board of directors. In some cases the board of directors will be composed of
the organization’s main funders. It is their money, so they want to decide what happens with it.
Next to the directors, the organization will need people to help them reaching short-term and longterm goals. The more hands there are to help, the bigger an organization can get. As an NGO you
could fully rely on volunteers, but since money is involved, this is risky. It is an advantage to have a
paid manager. This has to be possible of course, many NGO’s don’t have sufficient financial
resources. A paid employee usually stays longer than a volunteer does. With this commitment in
time, the manager helps to create a solid and permanent structure. New managers need to be
trained, if they can stay longer this saves a lot of effort, permanent managers allow the organization
to build better relationships with stakeholders.
The board of directors and managers form the top of the structure. For smaller NGO’s the manager
or director is a jack of all trades, but when the NGO gets larger, more tasks can be handed over/down
and the focus can shift to managerial, more important tasks. Volunteers can help alleviate the
workload too. In theory there are ten functional business areas for business organizations (
production, R&D, administration, customer service, distribution, finance, human resources, ICT,
marketing and sales ), all equally important, but NGO’s can’t employ people for all functional
business areas. Moreover some of the areas are less important since NGO’s provide services instead
of offering products. The ideal situation appoints one employee to one field, resulting in ten people
specializing in ten different areas. Again, the main obstacle is usually financial. If permanent
employees prove to be impossibly expensive, it is recommended to find qualified volunteers,
because a malfunction of one of these areas can harm your organization.
With a director as a boss, a manager as a leader and employees or volunteers to make your
organization work, the most important placed are filled in. A final important aspect regarding the
structure is the inevitable fact that every organization is different concerning goals, circumstances
and ideals or values, etc.. The theory isn’t always as easy to apply and directors should make up the
right structure for themselves. It is a matter of experience and growing as an organization.
(Moshman, 2008)
7.2
TO BE REGISTERED OR NOT TO BE REGISTERED
An NGO isn’t just some random group of people. It is an official organization. You may be important
for society without really having officially registered your organization, but official organizations are
more professional and better armed against problems. It can take a lot of time to register your
organization and become an NGO, but in the end it will be worth it. Volunteers, donors or other
interest groups rather cooperate with officially registered organization than unofficial ones.
Registering an NGO is a legal process, so it may require some professional guidance. Some
organizations ask help and appoint a lawyer to help them to get through the formalities. Just like
other business forms, an NGO is registered in a certain country. Every country has its own laws and
requirements. When operating in different countries, it can be a good strategy to register the
organization in those different countries. Otra Cosa Network for example is registered as both a
Peruvian and British non-profit NGO.
Having registered the organization, you now have some benefits. Opening a bank account is possible
now, you can start fundraising and make official contracts with volunteers or employees. NGO’s can
benefit from tax exemption or other financial benefits; again with different laws in different
countries, resulting in varying benefits.
7.3
PARTNERS
Once the structure and the legal requirements have been met and a certain structure has been
established, it is time to get to work. Different NGO’s have different goals, reasons of existence and
operating procedures. Some NGO’s offer financial support to certain causes, others look for
volunteers to help in existing projects or other organizations, still other NGO’s develop their own
projects. This can be on a local or global level. In any case, a lot of NGO’s work with partners.
These partners are often other organizations with their own objectives.. It is important to chose the
right partners. Good partners will improve the relationship and may lead to permanent collaboration.
This is generally something both organizations benefit from. It helps to create a sustainable
environment for everyone involved.
Working with partners isn’t necessary, but some organizations simply would not exist without them.
Imagine an organization that wants to help in a developing country, but has never acted in that
country or area before. Several options are open: start new projects, build a school for example, or
help out at an existing school. A lot of NGO’s recruit volunteers to place in different partnering
projects. Partners are heavily relied on and should therefore be clear.
The main goal for the latter type of NGO’s is getting volunteers from all over the world and give them
a valuable experience. If volunteers aren’t happy with their partners’ projects, this will also influence
the relation with the recruiting organization. Therefore it is important as an NGO to screen partners,
rate them andact on these rates: advise them, end cooperation with low raters and try to strenghten
collaboration with top partners. The best and most objective way to rate partners is by attributing
scores to key aspects in the partnership.
31
Every organization can draft a scaling system for itself with individual key aspects. Two parts are
decisive: the way both organizations cooperate and the contentment of volunteers. Questionnaires
are used to measure this. Here are some examples of questions:






Did the workload match with made agreements?
Did you feel your work was appreciated?
Do you feel that you made a difference?
How was the reception at the partner organization in the beginning?
Would you recommend us to keep working with this partners?
…
Regarding the relationship and the collaboration with the partners you can set up a kind of
questionnaire for yourself as well. Questions here could be:







Does the partner’s mission match with your organization?
Are you important for the partner?
Does it cost your organization extra money to work with the partner?
Do you feel appreciated in the cooperation?
How is the contact with the organization? ( response on emails, telephone, etc…)
Is the partner willing to do an effort for your organization as well?
…
After you filled out the questionnaire or another rating form, you can put the results together. Make
a ranking with all the organizations. This will show you the top partners. Let all partners know the
results, so they can see how they score. Give extra information for every single organization, so they
can interpret their result. Now you can either stop cooperating with the bad partners or try and find
a solution and give them a second chance. It would only be fair to also reward or at least
congratulate the top partners. The more partners you have, the easier it is. Sometimes organizations
don’t have the power to work without certain partners. Still this partner scaling will be a good
exercise to increase the quality of your partnership.
32
8
WORKING WITH PEOPLE
A company, enterprise or business does not exist without human beings. They work with or for you,
whether or not for money. In NGO’s most of the human resources are volunteers, willing to offer
their time to work for you. As any other company, an NGO has to manage its employees or
volunteers. With volunteers there is little to no money to offer though. So you will need to handle
them differently to keep the contentment high.
VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT
8.1
In order to get money, people go working. They look for a job and companies offer these jobs. If the
jobseeker will get good money for his labor, it is easy to win an extra employee. When you can’t offer
big cash, it takes more time to look for workforce. You will have to convince people to work for your
cause instead of money.
8.1.1 RECRUITMENT WEBSITES
The internet is an easy and really inexpensive way to look for volunteers. Some websites are making
it even easier. There are several websites on the worldwide web where people can look for volunteer
opportunities. This offers a valuable platform for recruiting organizations. An organization looking for
volunteers can post advertisements on these websites. Sometimes it costs a certain amount of
money to post listings. On other websites it is completely free.
These websites are examples of volunteer recruitment websites.

Idealist ( www.idealist.org )
Idealist is a website for either recruiters to post opportunities or jobseekers to find them. It takes
a few steps to post a listing. First of all you will have to register your organization by clicking on
“Add your org” and follow the steps. Once you made your account and are logged in, you can
start posting listings. You can also log in with one of your social media accounts, such as
Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., but be aware that they will have access to personal information. Once
your organization is confirmed by Idealist, you can start to post listings.
If you want to create a new volunteer opportunity for your organization on Idealist, you will have
to do some copywriting. The information you will need to include in the listing is the following:




The name of the volunteer position
Description of position and project
Keywords
How to apply
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



Location
Time commitment
Skills needed
International volunteer options
If you are planning on regularly writing volunteer opportunities, it is recommendable to start
writing everything down in a word document or another form of text writing software, so you
can save it to reuse it later. Also, if you have more than one opportunity, it will be really helpful
to have a folder with drafts of your volunteer opportunities. This will save you time in the future.
If you have written everything down in your word document, you will only have to copy and
paste. Also this will be good to have, when posting listings on other websites, since the
information you will provide won’t change.
After posting your volunteer opportunity, you will have to wait for the response. The listing will
disappear in 180 days, so make sure you update it.
There is another way to use idealist as an organization. You can also search for potential
volunteers. There is a database of over 15000 individuals. Not all of them regularly check their
Idealist account, but a certain amount is still looking for an opportunity. This can be more
effective, but it takes a lot of your time. Because you will have to go over every single person and
not everyone is interested in what you offer.
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Click on “people” and have a look in the database. You will see that there are almost 600.000
accounts, but you will have to define your search to “people” looking for “ volunteer
opportunity”.

Charity Job ( www.charityjob.co.uk )
Charity job is basically the same as Idealist. There is a part for recruiters and for individuals
looking for a job. A big difference is that the website is British. Be aware that your audience will
consist mostly British. Charity Job also gives the possibility to pay for membership. This is
definitely not necessary if you only want to post job opportunities. As a premium member, there
are more features. When going through the database of candidates, paying members will be able
to see the CV’s and contact details. Also you can place paid job opportunities. Non paying
members can only place volunteer opportunities.
Again, the first step is to create an account and to register your organization in the recruiter
zone. On the top of the page there is a button for to switch zones, register and login.
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If you are logged in and in the recruiter zone, you can create your ads, manage them, look for
candidates and see an overview of applications for your job opportunities. Charity Job also offers
information about your live ads, such as views, interest and number of applications.
To start writing your volunteer job advertisement, go to “create volunteer ad”. The information
you will need to give is more or less the same as with Idealist. You can use your word documents
( or other text documents ) you wrote with the draft of the volunteer job and copy and paste the
information. Notice that with Charity Job, you can’t use links in your job description text.
There are more possibilities with Charity Job, when creating listings. You have the option to add:





Logo
Job details and function
Salary details
Define application methods
Attachments
The listings on Charity job expire faster than Idealist listings, namely 3 months.
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
Worldwide helpers ( www.worldwidehelpers.org )
World Wide Helpers differs from idealist and charity job. While Idealist and Charity Job mainly
focus on recruiting and finding jobs, World Wide Helpers tries to be more like a community that
connects organizations and volunteers ( which is basically the same, but the focus is different).
You could compare it with a Social Medium as Facebook if you want. Organizations have their
own space, with pictures, a blogging area, their connections, events and an inbox.
Once you have registered as an organization and posted your different projects, you won’t have
to update expired ads. The website is more static. Once you created your organization page and
gave information, you can add projects. Again, you can use your readymade drafts of project
descriptions.
This is the interface of WWH, on the Otra Cosa Network organization page. You can see
information of the NGO and some of their products.
When you are creating your project ads and organization page, make sure you bear in mind that
this is the form volunteers fill in. They look for the location, costs, duration and sector. Make sure
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this information is relevant, so volunteers find what they want when they come across your
organization.

The 7 interchange ( www.the7interchange.com )
The 7 interchange offers another type of recruitment website. On this site you can’t post your
ads or listings, but you can search for volunteers.
After registering your account as a “host”, you can go and look for the perfect match for your
open volunteer position. You also have a profile as an organization. This to show people you
contacted, that you are a legitimate organization.
The intention is that you select the country where you operate in. The website will show all
registered people who would possibly want to volunteer in this country. The search results you
will see give you a profile picture, information about the person, skills and interests, countries
where the person wants to go to and the type of role as a volunteer he or she wants. If on first
sight the person looks interesting and matches the profile you are looking for, you can contact
her or him.
Here is a list of other websites that work in the same way as the above-described websites:

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Team Social Work ( www.teamsocialwork.com )
Jobs 4 development ( www.jobs4development.com )
Omprakash ( www.omprakash.org )
Volunteer alliance ( www.volunteeralliance.com )
Volunteer match ( www.volunteermatch.org )
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



Do-it ( www.do-it.org.uk )
Go abroad ( www.goabroad.com )
Online volunteering ( www.onlinevolunteering.org )
Links 4 change ( www.links4change.com )
8.1.2 TARGET YOUR TARGET
As you can see there are several websites that can help you look for volunteers. This way it is hard to
specifically look for the right ones. Sometimes you might want to have experts or experienced
volunteers. You can go and look for suitable target groups.

Organizations and associations
Mostly people with the same interests will mass spontaneously. There are all sorts of
associations, organizations, forums, blogs, Facebook pages, etc.. This can be in your favor, so use
this urge to group.
Here are some examples: there is a surf project, where volunteers teach the kids how to surf, but
you need new volunteers. Some people applied for the job, because it is a nice volunteer
opportunity. The problem is that they can’t surf. They are useless to your organization and the
kids, who want to learn surfing. Now, you can just wait for other applicants and hope one day
there will be someone that is able to pass his experience. Another way is to actively seek your
right volunteer.
There are several things you can do. You just ask local surfers, since you are located near the sea,
and ask them if they can help you. This can be hard, because most locals aren’t looking for a
voluntary job. Fortunately there is the internet. If you google Surfing, you will come across loads
of website where you can possibly spread the word. There are surfer magazines, surfing
associations, surf reporting sites. All the websites share the same interest and attract your target.
Of course it will take some effort to advertise on these websites, but it is worth the effort. Almost
all good websites have contact pages and you can easily send an email to the right person. This
isn’t only a good way to look for volunteers, but also free publicity for your cause or organization.
Another adjacent manner is to go and look on Facebook. You can search groups or associations,
but you could also try to announce your listing on surf brands pages. You can just post it on their
Facebook timeline, but it is only polite to ask the permission first. Also, if you can have them
putting up your advertisement themselves, it can be a lot more effective.
The same applies for other projects. If you have an educational project, giving English lessons for
example, you can go and browse the web for your target group. Sometimes, like in this case, the
words English teaching are too general and you might specify your keywords. If you would go and
look for teachers associations, the results will be different. It can take some time to find the right
web pages, but eventually the results will be rewarding.
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
Universities and colleges
Trying to work with schools and universities can also be a great way to find new volunteers.
Students are the main age group you want to attract. Whether they want to explore the world,
have more spare time or want a new challenge. If you get the opportunity to go and speak about
voluntarism or voluntourism in schools, there is a chance to get the interest of some students.
Even more effective and more efficient is trying to work with schools around the world. Let them
help you find volunteers. A lot of universities and colleges send out students for their internship
abroad. Once you managed to build a relationship with a school, they could send you volunteers
on a yearly base. Not only do you have a certain amount of volunteers, but you also have
dedicated and motivated volunteers.
Interns will definitely improve the quality of the voluntary work of your organization. Imagine
you want to save turtles with your organization, but you haven’t got enough volunteers. If you
can specifically ask your partnering universities for veterinary students, you are sure that the
work will be done correctly and they will have a huge impact on the work you want to do.
All universities have their own website. There you can either find the international coordinator or
you can look for the right faculties you need. Some schools offer studies where spending a year
in another country is obligatory. Especially language faculties like to see their students in other
countries. For example South-American organizations may want to contact students that need
to spend some time in a Spanish speaking country. This way you create a win-win situation. You
have your volunteer and the student has a great opportunity to spend his year abroad.
Voluntarism in the healthcare sector can definitely use some experienced students. You can
discuss this with schools and maybe come up with new projects. If the schools are involved in a
new project, they will use this to promote the university too. So not only will you have qualified
volunteers, you will also have some extra free publicity and you if you are really lucky, you might
get some funding if you are working with a private school.
8.2
VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT
In a company directors love to have happy employees. It influences their work and the final results.
Managers and leaders are needed to reach overall contentment. Leaders of an NGO have the same
goal. They also want to increase happiness amongst their workforce, in this case volunteers. The
main difference and possible cause of problems is the fact that they are working for free or little
money. They work for your organization on a free basis. There is no financial incentive, so it is
important to focus on their experience of being a volunteer. There are some simple ways to increase
employees’ engagement and contentment. These are applicable to volunteers too.
People like to feel important and indispensable. Therefore managers need to give them certain
responsibilities or at least the feeling that they are of importance. This can be achieved as they can
participate and have a voice when decisions have to made. If you listen carefully to your volunteers
they will feel good and they actually might have something interesting to say. This can give you
different perspectives and volunteers will be more concerned. When you doubt the opinion or idea
of the volunteer try to discuss it until you both understand each other’s point of view. When a
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decision is made people like to hear this personally. Do the effort to let people know what will
happen before they get an information mail or other impersonal way of communication. (Santillano,
2012)
Another simple and costless way to keep your volunteers motivated is to praise their work. Let them
know that you appreciate their efforts. Speak to them personally and say that you are content. If you
have tangible results of their work, you can post some picture of it on your website or social media
with an article of their work. They will feel proud and they will keep on working hard. It can also
inspire other volunteers to help achieve better results. (Ellis, 2007)
8.3
VALUABLE INFORMATION WITHIN REACH
Knowledge is power, but sometimes it is just really useful. The more information you have, the better
you can prepare for what is going to happen. You can make forecasts or estimations based on your
experience and what has happened in the past. Getting this information can be very simple.
8.3.1 VOLUNTEER DATABASE
A really useful tool for your organization is a proper database. You don’t have to buy expensive
software. Microsoft Access or even excel work perfectly. Also you can download the open office
equivalents to make it even cheaper if you don’t want to buy the ms office pack. Start with some
simple information you might want to save in your database. Of course the basic information such as
names, contact information, nationality, etc. are logical. Based on the information you want to get
later you can add more to your database.
What can really help you are the date of arrival and departure. Not only is it a good to keep an
overview, but you can make your own graphs and charts with it. If you have all the dates of arrival in
one year, you can see the highs and lows per year. Interpreting this information, of course is another
thing. It could show in which period your marketing failed or where the interest in voluntarism is low.
Information like this can help you for the next years.
The more information about your volunteers or partners you receive, the more input you have for
your database and the more information you can deduce from it.
8.3.2 INTERVIEWS AND QUESTIONNAIRES
As a manager you are highly involved with everything in and around your organization, but this
doesn’t mean that you know everything about it. You don’t know what others think about it, for
example. The view from the outside is important. You can do an expensive research about the
opinion on your NGO. An inexpensive way is to survey your volunteers. They aren’t always as
involved and this might give another perspective.
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During their stay or when someone leaves your organization, whether it is a partner, volunteer or
employee, hold an exit or halfway interview or questionnaire. They will provide you with a different
kind of information. Sometimes, when they know they will leave, people are really honest.
Sometimes they will criticize you or they can be positive. Either way their point of view is needed. If
you know what is good, you know what you don’t have to change and on the other hand you will
have to work on what is bad. They give you a new agenda for things to improve. If the results are
good, you can also use positive results to convince people to go work for your organization.
In attachment to this guide there is an example of a basic exit interview taken by Otra Cosa Network.
Every organization should make a customized version to get better and more relevant results. Make
sure you ask for the information you want to know.
8.4
FAIRS
Fairs remain an effective offline advertising tool. Thousands of different fairs exist, all with a different
subject or cause. Fairs about cars, windsurf equipment, food, marketing, etc.. Even for NGO’s there
are special fairs. The United States Peace Corps for example organizes an “NGO Fair”. The Human
Rigths Initiative organizes an annual “NGO fair too. Look around and a lot of initiatives will be found.
This is a great way to network.
For NGO’s looking for volunteers in different countries other sorts of fairs exist. A popular concept
are fairs for tourism. Organizations can have a stand or display to attract tourists and convince them
of doing some voluntourism. Even if no one is interested, these fairs are a good way to talk to
interesting people and maybe a collaboration can arise.
Schools often organize fairs for students too. Especially for future choices about studies or students’
careers. An NGO can try to get a spot on these kind of fairs. Some students don’t want to work or
study. Give them another possibility, volunteering abroad. This sounds interesting and can give some
content to their gap year.
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9
BLEND IN WITH THE CROWD
“Place” is part of the basic model of the marketing mix. A difference with the other pieces ( product,
promotion and price ) is that an area is like it is. An organization can change its prices for services,
can change its promotion and its product or service, but changing the place is hard, expensive or
illegal. Therefore it marketers don’t change it, but focus on how to use it for your own benefit. They
find the best spots for distribution, for their target and promotion and how to interact with every
aspect around him. Important for NGO’s is the relationship with the area. Organizations can work
with campaigns and providing locals with information.
CREATING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ENVIRONMENT
9.1
Being a famous organization all over the world is great, but sometimes it can be more important to
be an important player on the local scene. It can be a huge advantage if you have a relationship with
the local communities. In order to get new local projects started or just to get discounts for your
volunteers. To have a better bond with the local government or important people. Sometimes it is
enough to go and meet them and just explain what you are doing in their community or city. The
fact that people know or have heard about you or your organization can speed things up in the
future. People will more likely help you and your organization out if you are familiar with them. Here
are some examples and ideas of how you can accomplish this.
9.1.1 PLAN A LOCAL EVENT
There are various types of events. Hosting a golf tournament, planning a music festival or doing a
cocktail night. One thing is for sure. An event has to have a purpose. The goal is mostly based on
getting attention or getting money, no matter what event you plan.
Some aspects are key when planning an event. These are the basics you will have to bear in mind:



The Date: before making any plans, the organizer has to pick a date. Of course it is important
to avoid completion on the day of the event. Since visitors are needed on an event, it is
recommended to choose a date when people are available and free. Saturday, Sunday or
holidays are the best options. If the event is in open air an event in summer is better in order
to avoid bad weather. To be sure there is no other event, organizers can ask for advice at the
municipality.
Location: The location is another key aspect for the organization of an event. Look what fits
the type of event best. A football tournament is held outdoors on football fields and can’t be
held in banquet facilities. If a specific location has to be hired, some dates can be taken
already. In this case either the location or the date has to be changed. Places as markets or
central squares in cities are popular, but make sure the accessibility is guaranteed. If cars are
expected, a parking space is needed. A well known location is easy to find, if the location is
uncommon make sure to give additional information about directions.
Financial resources: Organizing an event costs money. An estimation of total expenditures
should be made. A music festival requires more money than a chess tournament. Budget the
event and see how much money is already available and how much there is needed.
Ascertain the chance of collecting the amount of money that is needed.

Permission: The municipality and authorities need to be informed. There are different
procedures from place to place. Make sure the event doesn’t have to be canceled due to an
inadequate application for the event. In case of doubt, best thing to do is asking the
municipality for help. Also police or authorized forces should provide the required
information.
The first steps of planning are done. After receiving approval for the event, the actual preparation
can begin.






Infrastructure: Depending on the type of event, infrastructure is needed. For indoor events
this is not a major problem. For outdoor events shelter needs to be provided in case of bad
weather. Make sure there is access to electricity and water for toilets. Chairs and tables are
always useful. A first-aid post is can be obliged or in any case useful. Additional accessories
for the type of event are key for the success of an event too. Serving beverages or food
requires more facilities: cooler, gas or fire. Extra tents, tables or a bar will be needed.
Sponsors: When there is a lack of money or there is no money at all, sponsors are needed.
Enterprises could enjoy the publicity of helping out a non-profit organization or a certain
type of event that fits their brand. Red Bull targets fans of extreme sports, so they will be
happy to advertise at a surfing contest. Also local sponsors will be happy to help out the
community. Sponsors give money or goods in order to advertise on the event. With good
incentives as good visibility of the brand or company name, it is easier to seduce sponsors.
Also free access to the event can be given to sponsors. VIP arrangements are popular too and
they can create relationships between the local sponsors and the organization.
Food and drinks: Visitors are the main source of income on an event. It is important to keep
them satisfied. Provide them with drinks if they are thirsty, with food if they are hungry.
Publicity: In order to get these visitors to come to your event, advertisement is needed. Let
people know there is an event. Hang posters or banners in local bars and stores or in the
streets ( sometimes permission is needed ). Flyer in bars and speak to potential visitors.
Word of mouth publicity can be convincing and more personal. Try to cover the expenses
with money from sponsors. Let pay the flyer or poster in exchange of advertising on them.
Online promotion is free. Social media are great places to convince people to come and
provide them with information.
Human resources: Successful events require a lot of work. Volunteers can help serve drinks,
set up or decorate the location. Some people will be eager to help for free entry and some
drinks. Depending on the type of event key players are needed. For a surf contest surfers are
needed, for a music festival bands have to play, etc.. Simple contracts and incentives
whether or not financial are advisable to guarantee the turn-out.
Legal requirements: Some events need legal requirements. In some countries permission is
needed to serve alcoholic drinks or to play by copyright protected music. Make sure you have
all legal requirements straight.
With these aspects an event can held. This isn’t a warranty for success, but with motivation, help
from volunteers and a lot of dedication you can work towards a nice result.
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9.2
CAMPAIGNS IN THE AREA
With an event held every now and then, the people will get to know your organization. However
there are other ways to attract the attention in the area.
9.2.1 STREET ART OR GUERILLA MARKETING
Guerilla marketing is a non conventional way of advertising. It an effective marketing method that
draws the attention to your organization in an original and mostly unexpected way. Guerilla
marketing is mostly associated with street marketing, since this is the place where it meets the
general public. The most effective advertisements are shocking or funny. Marketers use existing
elements in public places or daily life situations to surprise the audience.
This image is extracted from http://img.weburbanist.com
Not only will it serve as advertisement for your organization, it will also create a lot of buzz around it.
Not all organizations have the money for big campaigns, but sometimes creativity or imagination will
do. The following example of a Durex campaign can be done by using some chalk, or paint to do a
better job.
This image is extracted from http://www.andrewjpearce.com/
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The better one knows the area and its habits or routines, the better a campaign can be integrated in
this life. Street art is a popular way of advertising as well. If an NGO is based in a place with a lot of
graffiti artists, it can use this fact and turn it into an opportunity. Look for some artists and ask them
to paint a piece of art on your wall or on different places all over the city. Companies are sometimes
glad to pay fines in exchange of buzz, but organizations who can’t afford this should consider other
ways of advertising or ask permission.
Guerilla marketing is an interesting area. Every single campaign is different and copycats aren’t as
successful. Original campaigns will be successful, so it is important for the marketer to use its
imagination and be creative. Not only will you be noticed in the local community, with a good
campaign you might make as a viral post on social media.
9.2.2 AMBUSH MARKETING
Ambush marketing is another type of marketing below the line. An ambush marketing campaign has
as purpose to draw the attention from one brand onto another brand. This can be controversial,
especially on big events such as the Olympic Games, but doesn’t necessarily needs to be offensive.
There are many good cases, mostly between a big brand as an official sponsor and another brand
trying to convert this campaign of the competitor in his advantage. This battle between brands draws
a lot of attention and this is the main purpose of these campaigns. Sometimes it is innocent like this
advertisement using apple’s billboard for its campaign:
This image is extracted from http://static5.businessinsider.com/
Other campaigns are more controversial or cause discontentment with one of the protagonists. At
the Olympic games in 2012 the headphone brand “Beats By Dre” sent customized headphones to the
athletes. They didn’t pay the huge sum official sponsors had to pay, but got a lot of attention and
visibility on television. Especially official sponsor Samsung, who also sells headphones wasn’t happy.
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This image is extracted from http://www.brandchannel.com/
In the best cases a battle of campaigns arises turning it into a benefit for both brands. This is the best
option for an NGO. Since they won’t gain from conflict or controversy. Also NGO’s don’t have the
money to buy billboards or give away free goods. There are ways though to start a simple ambush
marketing campaign.
If a popular and big event is coming up, an NGO can use this to their advantage and plan an ambush
campaign. The only requisites are t-shirts with the logo of the NGO for volunteers to wear. To reduce
costs organizations can let a sponsor pay for the t-shirts and offer a little spot for the sponsor’s logo.
If volunteers are dedicated they will possibly pay their t-shirts themselves, so a sponsor isn’t needed.
When a big group of people shows up in uniform, this will automatically draw the attention. People
will get curious and want to know what the t-shirts are about. If local media shows up, they might
end up making excellent publicity for the ambushing organization. When pictures are taken or
videos are made, the logo will inevitably appear on social media, in the background or spotlights.
Depending on the effort volunteers are willing to do. Flash mobs are popular. With a performance
volunteers can draw all the attention to your NGO. Again, creativity is the key to success.
9.2.3 LOCAL PUBLICATIONS
An article about an organization in the media can be more persuasive than an paid advertisement.
Being featured in a newspaper or magazine is great publicity. It is completely free and a lot of people
read it. The same applies for a call to a radio station or even guest appearance. Sometimes even a
short report on local television station. These are forms of free publicity. A lot of newspapers try to
target a specific area. Sometimes they are looking for local news to fill up their newspaper. If an
organization is planning an event or there is some special occasion they can try to contact journalists.
Some will be glad to listen to someone with a story. Media act as a third party and credibility will
increase. Newspapers have a certain degree of authority, so this kind of publicity will be extra
effective.
It isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Some organizations or stories will be denied plenty of times, but
with a good story and some luck they can succeed. Especially a premiere or a special event will help
get the attention. Try to go to websites and look for contact details of journalists in the area. Ask
them if they are interested. This effort doesn’t cost any money.
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In most towns there still is an offline newsletter published every now and then. By making contact
with the editor, there is a chance of getting an article about the organization in it. This will make sure
people in the area can read more about the organization and its work. In most towns there is also a
calendar of events in the area. Organizations can make contact to put upcoming events on it.
(Aileron, 2013)
The chamber of commerce in your area can also publish a newsletter. Marketers should try to be
featured in one of them. This will be really persuasive since the chamber of commerce has a high
level of authority.
Marketers always have to be on their guard for opportunities. Every appearance through a third
party can increase awareness or fame for your NGO.
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10 THE WORLD WIDE WEB FOR NO-BUDGET MARKETERS
Promotion is what most people think of when you say marketing. The main goal of promoting your
product is getting the attention to your product or service, so people will go over to the action of
buying or using your services. There are several options to promote your product or service. The
most conventional ways are the so called above the line media. Advertisement on TV, in cinema, on
the radio and in newspapers are classified under it. The counterpart of “above the line” media are
“below the line” media. Some examples are personal mailing, tele-marketing, sports sponsorships,
social marketing, geomarketing, etc.. The last types of media are a lot cheaper than the above the
line ones. This is interesting for organizations without big marketing budgets.
On the internet there are plenty of possibilities for a marketer. Since the world wide web became
accessible for personal use, the numbers and figures of the internet use increase rapidly. Here are
some numbers of the daily use of internet and some of its most popular aspects.





There are 2.4 billion internet users all over the world, that is one-third of the entire
population.
In 1 second 2.8 million emails are sent, 333 new Tumblr posts are made and 1633 tweets are
published.
In 1 minute there are 694.445 Google searches, 600 videos uploaded to Youtube ( ca. 25
hours of video ) and there are 320 new twitter accounts made. This while only 250 babies are
born in that same minute.
In 1 hour there are 10,5 million pictures uploaded to facebook, 780.000 Iphone apps
downloaded and 4200 new domains registered.
So in 1 day 98 years’ worth of Youtube videos are uploaded, 172 million different people
visit Facebook and the world spends the equivalent of 133.333 years online. (Neal, 2013)
Seen that so many people use the internet daily it is a great communication tool for your
organization. There are loads of ways to communicate with your audience.
10.1 ABOUT BLOGGING
One of the most effective online communication tools is a blog. You could use a blog as your only
online presence. Better is to have a website with all your important information and a blog as well.
The website could used to provide static content and a blog could be used to communicate with the
visitors. Some organizations use their blog to post testimonials of previous volunteers. Others
provide information on their projects. There are a lot of possibilities, but there are some important
key points that are important in any case. First of all you have to write a blog that is worth reading.
Having a blog isn’t really special. It is what is written, the content, that makes it interesting. The
second important point is attracting your audience, because if no one can find your blog, it makes no
sense.
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The content on your website is really important. The purpose of a blog is that you share information
with your visitors. Thus you want them to read what is on it. Some people are really interested,
because they are specifically looking something that could help them. Others aren’t really looking,
but you still can provide them with more information about your organization. The point is to get
people closer to you and attract them to help you or just to help you spread the word about what
you do. Especially because there are thousands of blogs, it gets harder to be that one blog that
people want to read. First of all, before you start writing, you need to think about your subject. Is it
worth writing about? Do you have enough to talk about and will it create loyalty amongst your
audience? So think before you start. Make sure you know what you will say and stick to the subject.
Don’t start writing about other things, next to the subject, keep it simple and clear for the readers.
Quality is more important than quantity. Of course you can write long articles, but you have to keep
the focus of your visitors. What helps in this case is organization of your post. Use of titles and
paragraphs is highly recommended. Try to divide your ideas in different points, to build up to your
conclusion. A nice extra for your post are images or pictures. This is what attracts the most attention.
If you have photos about your project or activities within the organization, this could be helpful. If
not, try to find images that relate to your idea and help explain what is written. Not even will it grab
the attention, but it will also help your visitors to understand what exactly you are talking about.
When you are finished writing, make sure there are no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. If
you use links, make sure they work and also check for contradictions or false information. Last thing
to do is thinking of a good title. This is what people see and will read first. Your idea or subject should
be covered. In a lot of cases the title will show up as a link to your post. With a successful title you
will have more attention and this is what you need in the first place. (Jain, 2013)
A good title is important to generate traffic to your blog, but there is more. Your content is really
important. It could be that when you have a really interesting story, it becomes viral and people will
share it. This is a dream for every blogger. Of course some topics are easier to sell. We already know
that sex sells and also offending people are a good way to blast off a discussion, but that is not the
way you want to do it for an NGO. It is hard to come up with a viral post, but what also could help are
regular updates of high quality. People will have a story to follow, just like different episodes of a TVseries. Just like the most popular of these series, creating suspense can help increase frequent visits
of certain followers. Only with regular updates this will be successful, because people won’t wait
forever. They will lose interest or just totally forget about it if they have to wait too long.
There are other, more ‘technical’ ways, to generate traffic. Most blog writing websites provide
functions to share posts on different social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.. If your
organization is active on these social media, you can use them to send out your blog posts. Again, in
this case, the title and images are really important, since this is what your followers or fans will see
appear on social media.
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Social media are seen as one of the best tools and above all: it’s free!
On the internet there are several different websites that offer space for free blogs. They all have
their own online software helping you to create your own layout and interface. The most popular
sites are Wordpress (http://wordpress.com/), Blogger by Google (http://blogger.com) and Tumblr
(https://www.tumblr.com/).
The purpose is the same on each site: to create a blog. The main difference is the usability and
interface. On all blogs you can create a profile for your organization and start to spread your
message. Choose a theme that fits your organization and build up a network by following other
bloggers.
Tumblr interface
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Blogger interface
Wordpress interface
10.2 THE WORLD OF FACEBOOK
Facebook is far out the most popular social media in the world. Facebook is worth millions of dollars
and the amount of users increases every day. The social medium is especially popular in western and
wealthy countries. Overall, in places where there is a good access to technology and internet,
Facebook is popular. In some countries, as China or Iran, there is censorship and its inhabitants can’t
officially use it. Because the use of Facebook in most of the more prosperous countries is huge, this
is one of the most important to attract new volunteers, donors or just the attention your NGO needs.
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This image is extracted from http://blog.involver.com/
Supposing a lot of people know how to use Facebook, the basics of creating a Facebook won’t be
covered. If you would like to have information about creating an account and getting started, there
are plenty of websites that can help you. One thing is important though. Make sure your ONG uses
the account as a page, so people can ‘like’ you. Your organization is not a person or human being, so
a personal account as a normal user is not recommended.
If you don’t know how things on Facebook work, you can find clear information in the Facebook Help
Centre: https://www.facebook.com/help/.
If you want to use Facebook as a marketing tool, you need to build a fan base. Else your page would
be purposeless. To create a fan base, you have to get Facebook users to “like” your page. Only if
people “like” your organization, you can share information that will appear on their Facebook
homepage.
First impression
There are different ways to build up your audience, which are your fans. Some are more simple than
others. The most important thing is the attractiveness of your page. This can be very simple. The
name of your page should be clear. Don’t use complicated names, for it will be harder to look for
your organization on Facebook. With the current interface, you can add a cover photo next to your
profile picture. It goes without saying that using good photos or images is an easy, but still an
important way to improve the quality of your page. Make sure that the message, mission and vision
of your organization is represented. That what they see is obvious and tells more about your
organization.
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This, for example, is the header of the Unicef Facebook page. The name is clear, they use a moving
cover photo and the profile picture is their logo. It is immediately clear what the organization is
about and what they are striving for at the moment. In this case the children affected by the war in
Syria.
Also the information you give about your organization should be very clear, as it appears on top of
the screen and is the first text visitors will read. Make it interesting, plain and keep it short, so people
will be engaged to click on it and learn more about you.
https://www.facebook.com/unicef
Share and suggest
These are the basics, but there is more. There are some useful tricks to generate traffic to your
Facebook, because without this, people won’t see your organizations Facebook page. The fastest way
to spread the word is to share your page on the personal Facebook timelines. You can easily share
your page with your friends. You only have to click on the “share” button. Another, a bit more direct
way is to suggest your friends to like the page with the “suggest to friends” button. If you dispose of
a mailing list, you send out a mail to ask your audience to like your Facebook page. You can also add
a link to your Facebook page in every mail you send or make a Social Media section in your
newsletter where you keep inviting people to get interactive.
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Here is an idea of what you could possibly do. You can change your mail signature or personalize it
the way you want.
Sincerely,
“your organization”
Phone number, address, etc..
Find us on:
“
www.facebook.com/yourfacebookpage ”
or
“
” as a hyperlink to your Facebook page.
Another effective way of “sharing” your page is simply asking the people you know and people you
meet, If they want to like your facebook page. This offline way of promoting your page is really direct
and can be more efficient.
Facebook Plugins
There are more technical ways to generate traffic to your page. You can add simple widgets or plugins to your website which create a link to your social media. Most online weblog software offer an
easy build in connection with Facebook. You don’t have to work with difficult codes or IT-language.
For website designers there is a wide range of options to connect your site with Facebook.
On the Facebook developers support page, you can find all information needed about these plug ins,
all the codes you need and what exactly they do. Here is an overview of the different plug-ins:



Like button : you can add a like button, with this button people will be able to “like” articles
or information, pictures, etc.. This action will make the content appear on their Facebook
timeline, so the information will be shared with their friends. If what they share is found
interesting, new people could possibly start following you.
Send button: this button has more or less the same function, only will it send the information
in a personal message to someone friends on Facebook. It won’t show up publicly on their
timeline. So it will be less effective.
Comments: With a comment plug-In people will be able to write a comment on the content
of your website. On articles, pictures or comments of other visitors. They will be given the
option to publish their comment on their profile. This creates more fuzz for you.
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



Activity feed: With this plug-in people can follow their friends on your website. They can see
the actions, what their friends like or where they posted a comment. This can be motivate
them to also comment and like. This way more people may join your network.
Recommendations box: Visitors van recommend the content on your website. This box
recommends other pages that can be related to the page the visitor is on. This box can show
what is popular amongst the friends of the visitor or what is popular in general.
Like box: The like box is more than the like button. You can still like the page, but it also
shows the recent posts and friends who like the page. With a like box, people don’t need
your Facebook page, but they will still be able to follow your activity and become a fan.
The login button and registration: These plug-ins are more advanced. If you have a website
with an online community, this could be helpful. People can sign up for anything you offer on
your website without having to fill in registration forms. They can simply use their Facebook
account. This way they also agree to give personal information. If visitors are logged in after
they registered, their activity on your website will be shown on their timelines. This creates a
complete interaction between your website, your users, your Facebook page and the
timeline of your visitors.
You can get the technical information here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/.
You can copy the codes or Facebook helps you creating the different plug ins, compatible for
your website.
This is an example of a Facebook plug-in on a Wordpress blog/website. A lot of software
provide the facebook plug-ins. It is really easy to add these to your website and it can be very
effective.
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Alternative ideas
There are other ways to get more attention or more fans. Some organizations are really creative.
Sometimes companies organize contests or give away prizes. Some companies ask their fans to tag
someone or tag themselves in order to win tickets for an event or products that they offer. People
will help you to get the attention, because when they like someone, it will appear on their timeline
and they will share it with their friends. Of course you will need something to offer. If you don’t have
a lot of money, you will have to come up with other ideas. Some people just like to have fun instead
of winning prizes.
You can add a funny picture about a project or about an activity of your organization and ask people
to think of a good title for it. Ask them what they think or try to find other ways to get interactivity
between your page, your fans and other Facebook users.
Another more advanced way to get people to your page, is using an QR code. You can add this QR
code to your flyers, posters or other offline marketing tools. There are several websites that offer the
service to make a QR code for you. http://www.qrstuff.com/ is one example. Follow the different
steps and in little time you have a useful tool. Most people, only those with a Smartphone, will get
curious and try it out.
An example of a QR code.
Some pages use other techniques. They hide their content for non-fans. Visitors will have to like the
page first to read the content. This can scare the visitors though. Only if you have really curious
visitors, this will work.
Facebook Posts
Building up your audience, your fan base, is important. However it is equally important to give them
something in return for being your fan. They want to get information or news from your
organizations. After all, that is why they liked your page in the first place. When posting, an
important keyword is interactivity. The more your posts get shared, liked, tagged, etc., the more
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views it will get. This way your organizations is in the spotlights. The main goal for every posts should
be getting viral. If fans will share a video and their friends will share it again, and again, you did an
amazing job. The content of the post is important.
A lot of studies have been done to increase the effectiveness of Facebook posts. Why not use this
gained knowledge for our own purpose. A study showed that posts with photos generate the highest
rate of interaction. Something visual will more likely draw the attention and can contain more
emotions. Another great way, for small NGO’s to get the attention is posting pictures of your projects
with your volunteers in it. They will be proud and if you are lucky they will tag themselves. It will
appear on their friends’ facebook homepages and reach a high rate of views.
Other results in the same study showed that posting frequently also increases interactivity. People
will get to know your organization better. However you should be careful of posting too much.
Posting more than three times per day will cause unsubscribing fans. Related to the frequency is the
time of posting. The results showed that during weekends and from 2 pm to 5 am Facebook users are
the most interactive. Posting during these periods could increase activity and extra awareness for
your posts. (Belicove, 2011)
Status updates are in second place of most popular posts. There are some small tricks that you can
keep in mind when writing them. For example: try to stay positive. It’s not always possible, especially
when you are fighting a certain cause. Try to find a balance between heavy or shocking posts and feel
good posts. Also try to be a little bit funny. Don’t make your posts too boring. You don’t have to joke
around, but if you can write something unexpected or witty, people will pay more attention. A good
update to increase interactivity is asking questions. If there is a call to action, in this case to
comment, you status will be in the picture. When you do this, don’t forget to take your time to
respond to the comments. You don’t have to respond to every single comment, but try to start an
interesting and positive discussion. You might learn something from your fans as well. (Shannon,
2012)
Problem solving or customer service
Social media are also used as a new kind of customer service. Especially companies providing services
use this a lot. People with a problem can ask for help on Facebook and get a quick answer. Through
Facebook you can raise your availability towards your potential volunteers. People are on Facebook
almost every day and sometimes they will find it easier to post their questions on Facebook instead
of sending an e-mail. It can be very useful for other persons as well. It will offer an online FAQ
service.
10.3 TWEETING ON TWITTER
Another successful internet marketing tool is Twitter. It is a social medium where people or
organizations can send out 140-character messages to the world. Other people can read these
messages, react to them or resend them. A message is called a “tweet” and your audience is called
“followers”. Because the messages are really small, Twitter is called a micro-blogging service. Just as
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with Facebook, you will need to find a way to get more followers, because only they can read you
tweets. You can also follow other organizations and build a network.
All social media have their similarities. There is an audience, other users of twitter and there is you
somewhere among these users trying to get their attention, share information with them, provide a
customer service or to advertise, etc.. On Facebook organizations have to make sure their Facebook
page is attractive and professional. The same applies to facebook. Twitter also provides the personal
space to display your organization, with information and pictures.
This is an example of a Twitter profile page of a university. Of course the advertisements are ads by
Google and are not part of the profile. There is a possibility to add a background to your profile. In
this case it is white and the logo and additional information are part of the background image. If you
don’t have the technical computer skills to make these kind of backgrounds, choosing a picture which
adds more value to your profile page can be nice. However, the most important part of your profile
is the part, marked with the green arrow on the example above. Here people can see the name of
your organization, your Twitter username, information about your organization and two types of
pictures. The small one with in this case the logo and the background of this information field. Note
that this is a different background than the one of your profile page.
When someone comes across your name while browsing his/her Twitter, he can click on it. This field
will be shown as your profile summary. The more attractive and interesting this is, the more chance
people will actualy start following you on Twitter. This is an example of a profile summary of another
organization.
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Having a nice profile is one thing, it gives a first impression. Second and also important is the way you
use Twitter. People can follow you, but as easy as they can follow you, they can also un-follow you. If
your Tweets aren’t interesting and they will read over it and they won’t notice your message or
worse, it will annoy them and they will delete you from their list of interests.
Use success of other organizations
Re-tweeting can help. It is another famous Twitter term. It is copying the tweet of someone you
follow and send it to your followers. If you don’t know have the inspiration or simply don’t have
anything to say at the moment, you can always share opinions of other organizations with your
audience. This way your organization will still be represented on Twitter. Try to look for organizations
fighting for the same cause or those that can be related to your operations. You could also
participate in discussions on the Twitter pages of these organizations with a lot of followers. This way
you may get noticed and attract new followers.
On the other hand you will have to watch out not to follow too many other tweeters. People can see
how many followers you have. If this amount is really low and you follow a thousand others, you will
lose credibility.
Hashtags and trending topics
As an organization on Twitter you can follow trends to get the attention. There are so called trending
topics. Hot items, popular issues. Twitter provides a list with trending topics for you on the left side
of the screen. This list is tailored to your interests. There are more than just this list. Several websites
follow certain trends and trending topics. Have a
look at
these pages:




http://trendsmap.com/
http://whatthetrend.com/
http://twirus.com/
…
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People can follow these trending topics. When they click one of them in a tweet, an overview
appears with all tweets talking about this topic. To include your tweet in that list, just insert a
hashtag ( # ) and the exact combination of words that is used. Keep in mind that you are still trying to
be credible, so don’t just follow all the trends. Keep your posts relevant, interesting and professional.
This will help you to outstand the competition.
When you already have a lot of followers, either on Twitter, your website or other social media, you
could start your own trending topic. If you succeed in doing this, it can have a great impact on your
organization. People like to follow trends and more and more individuals will hear from your
organization through friends on Twitter. Promote your hashtag through all your other
communication channels. Make sure your topic has something to do with your field of action and is
easy to remember.
Widgets
Just as there are widgets for Facebook, you can find Twitter widgets to add to your website or blog. A
timeline widget is one of them. This is a collection of Tweets shown in a certain area on your website.
There is are several types of this timeline widget.




A “User Timeline” shows the public tweets of your organization on Twitter.
A “Favorites” timeline shows all tweets your organization ( or someone else ) has marked as
favorite.
A “list” timeline shows tweets from a certain list that you can subscribe to.
A “search” timeline shows a search result. This is an interesting timeline to use for a “Twitter
wall” on events or conferences.
To find the different codes to add a certain timeline to your website, you can go to the twitter help
center. (https://dev.twitter.com/docs/embedded-timelines or for more advanced codes:
http://tweetgrid.com/widget/examples.php )
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This image shows an example of a “search” timeline used by a sports website. The timeline allows
people all over the world to comment on a certain event. In this case a football game. Twitter users
only have to add a certain hashtag to their tweet and they appear immediately on the timeline.
(Twitter, 2013)
10.4 NETWORKING WITH LINKED IN
Next to Facebook and Twitter there are several other types of social media for organizations to use
as marketing tool. Linked In is one of them. It is another form of social network that is used for more
professional purposes. Some people see their LinkedIn account as their online CV. People won’t
share their pictures of the weekend, but their education, work experience, etc.. Every outstanding
organization should be part of this social/ professional network. Your volunteers or staff can add your
organization to their profile. They will advertise for your organization in a professional way.
LinkedIn offers special company pages to create a page that is suited for your organization. With this
page you can’t only represent your NGO, you also can create a follower community, build
professional relationships or even recruit volunteers. (DeStefano, 2013)
Create your company page
The best way to start using LinkedIn for your organization is trough your own account. As director or
marketing manager it is important to be promoter for your NGO as well. Make a professional account
on LinkedIn by following the different steps. In case you already have your account, make sure you
are logged in.
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If you have your active LinkedIn account, you can create your company page. By moving your cursor
over interests you can click on Companies. Next you click on add company, fill in the name of your
company and your official email address. After verifying your email address, you can start creating
your page.
First of all you will have to select a language. You can edit the company information for several
different languages. English users can see the information in English while for example you can also
provide a Spanish version of the information for your users from Spain or South-America.
After selecting the language, you can edit your company profile. Use the official name of your NGO
and write a professional and clear description. You can add other administrators for your company
page. Post an image of your company, a standard and square logo. Make sure the style of all images
matches and makes a nice and attractive result. You can complete your company page by giving
additional information as: company type, company size, company website URL, main company
industry, operating status, year founded , your location and the company specialties.
This is a result of company page. In this case it is the WWF LinkedIn page. The outcome makes for a
professional profile for your NGO. (Mashable, 2013)
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Connect
Like you have fans on Facebook, followers on Twitter, you have “connections” on LinkedIn. You can
send requests to people you know, you worked with or you are interested in. You will request to
connect to this person’s profile. By adding more connections, your network will expand. Just like
you can post on Facebook or Tweet on LinkedIn , you can share something with your connections on
LinkedIn. Obviously the more connections you have, the more people you will reach. With a large
network it will also be easier to spread job posts. (Fritz, 2012)
Recruitment
Since LinkedIn is a professional and career related social network it offers a huge opportunity for job
recruitment. Companies can post jobs and individuals can apply for them via LinkedIn. LinkedIn even
provides a recruiter service. They have software for businesses to expand their reach and look for
candidates. Unfortunately this is not costless. You can sign in as a recruiter and buy premium
membership. The cheapest package costs 30 euro’s per month.
10.5 VIDEO MARKETING
It is in human nature to choose the fastest or easiest way to do something. Therefore, when
collecting information, people will more likely be seduced to watch an informational video than
reading a text with the same info. Also people remember more when they can associate a certain
piece of text or information with an image. It is really useful and enjoyable for your audience to have
promotional or informational videos on your website. There are several websites providing a video
streaming service. There is Vimeo, Metacafe, Hulu, Veoh, Youtube and many more. Since Youtube is
far out the largest we will use this one as an example.
With 72 hours of uploaded video per minute and 800 million unique visitors per month, Youtube is
considered the most popular video streaming website (Bullas, 2013). It is completely different than
Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, but also a social media website. All big brands are active on Youtube.
They have their own channels with sponsored videos. There is a possibility to advertise on Youtube
as well. Linear, non-linear, pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, In-video, side banners, etc.. There are loads of
possibilities, but unfortunately these interesting marketing tools are expensive and won’t be
discussed in this guide.
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Even if advertising isn’t free, Youtube can still be an interesting tool. If you don’t have an account on
Youtube yet, you can register or log in with a Google account. With an account it is possible to upload
videos and share them on the world wide web. Both uploading and watching the clips are completely
free.
The making of
A video is an attractive communication tool. It is a mixture of images, audio and text. People are lazy
and don’t always want to read too much. That’s where a short clip can come in handy. It is also easier
to provide information trough images. With a nice piece of music emotion can be added and
eventual a voice can be added over the video. With some convincing text the result can quickly
become a good promotion for your cause, organization or project.
The script
To make an attractive and successful promotional or informational video you will have to think of the
content first. What do you want to say or show in the video and how? To keep an overview, the best
thing to do is to write down your script. Before you start filming, you should know what to film. A
video with just some collected clips is mostly found sloppy and will lack a story and strength. Think of
different locations. Try to find people who can tell something more or use testimonials by using
interviews. Another effective aspect is the call to action. Especially when making a promotional
video. The video should persuade the viewers and get them warm for your cause.
Before you start, it can be good to browse the web and look how others do it. Looking for good
examples is never a bad idea. Once you have the outlines of your video you can start filming.
Filming the video
The filming itself is not as easy as it looks. First of all a camera of good quality is needed. Most people
nowadays have a camera. Ask your neighbor, family, volunteers, employees or other people you
know if you could borrow theirs if you don’t possess one. Making a video of inferior quality, with a
really low resolution is as worse than having no video at all.
While shooting clips for your video, try to find different and original angles, perspectives or points of
view. It can be a big advantage if you can use a tripod for filming, so the image wouldn’t shake too
much. If not try to use something else to rest the camera on. When doing an interview or when
recording spoken text, make sure the microphone is of good quality. Avoid windy areas or crowded
and noisy places.
Editing the video clips
From the moment you have your script and the clips you need, the editing process can start. The
more experience you have, the better the result will be. On most windows computers there is the
free software called “Windows (live) Movie Maker”. Compatible for Apple, the most famous video
editing software are Final Cut Pro and Imovie. There are numerous other programs, from
professional software to easy and user-friendly software. Unfortunately the best software is really
expensive. Here is a list of freeware or downloadable trial versions :

Avidemux (http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/)
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






VSDC Free Video Editor (http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-video-editor)
MPEG Streamclip (http://www.squared5.com/)
VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org/)
Free Video Dub (http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-Video-Dub.htm)
Lightworks (http://www.lwks.com/)
Freemake Video Converter (http://www.freemake.com/)
…
There are many other possibilities. However Windows Movie Maker still is one of the better free to
use software for windows computers. Working with new software always takes some time. With
video editing software as well. It is not easy to edit a video for the first time. The more you practice,
the better the result will be. Nevertheless the result is always rewarding. Before you think your video
is finished, ask the opinions of others. When you are working on the same thing for hours, you
sometimes lose the overview or will look over small mistakes. They can discover some mistakes or
help you make the video better.
Upload the video
After finishing the video editing process it is time to upload it to a video streaming website, like
Youtube. The video will get its own space on the internet with an URL.
The first thing to do when uploading is looking for a name for the video. This doesn’t have to be
really farfetched. Keep the title simple and to the point. It can be helpful if you are planning to
upload multiple videos to give them an organized name. For example by adding the name of the
organization in the title. For example: “[OCN Projects ] Teaching English in Huanchaco”. This will be
both easy for you and the interested viewers. Other basic info is the video description. Here you can
give some more information, but keep it short. If you want to give more information, redirect the
viewer to your website with a hyperlink. The next information you will need to give are tags.
Choosing good and relevant tags will help people find your video. If someone looks for a keyword on
Youtube and the same word is found within your tags, your video will appear in the search results.
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You can immediately share your video to your Facebook, Twitter or the less popular Google +
account. Also choose a category among the possibilities to make it easier for the audience to find
your video. On the tab of advanced settings you can give some more information as the location,
date or define the settings of your video about comments for example.
Once your video is successfully uploaded, the newly created Youtube link will appear on top of the
page. By clicking on the URL you can now go and see your video.
Your video is uploaded. Youtube offers you more features to change more to your video. There are
some icons on the bar below your actual video. With these icons you can edit or improve the quality
of your upload.
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






Info and settings: With the first button you can go back to the basic info and advanced
settings to make some changes.
Enhancements: This is a video editing tool integrated on Youtube. It offers some basic
utilities or effects. You can trim your video, which means too cut some parts. You can apply a
color effect, change the contrast, add a slow-motion effect or stabilize a shaky video.
Audio: The audio button gives the possibility to add a music track to your video. There is a
list of free music to choose from. Be careful because Youtube will ban the music from your
video if it is protected by copyrights. This isn’t recommended either if you already have
audio on your video.
Annotations: On Youtube you can add annotations to your video. These are fields in your
video, to make it more interactive. The annotations can give extra information about your
video or you can provide links to related videos. Make sure you don’t annoy your audience
with too many annotations. The best way to use them are either in the beginning of your
video or at the end.
Captions: Especially if you have a person speaking in your video, captions can be really
useful. It will take some time to add subtitles, but it is worth the effort to make your video
more enjoyable.
Analytics: By clicking on this button you can find more information, statistics and analyzes of
the views or viewers of your video.
Video manager: The last button brings you to an overview of all your uploads.
Share your video
An uploaded video is of no use when no one can see it. There are several ways to share your video.
Again, Youtube gives you some options for it. Click on the tab “share” below the video. There is a
shortened URL of the video that you uploaded. There is a list of several social media websites as well.
You can share the video on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, Blogger, StumbleUpon,
LinkedIn, Myspace and Reddit. Of course there are other social media missing and you can use other
channels to share your video.
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Next to the “share this video” tab, there is the “Embed” tab. Now it gets a little more technical, but
interesting. Youtube gives you a code which you can copy and paste in the HTML code of your
website. Now you can insert videos on your website. Instead of a long description of a project on
your webpage visitors of your website now have another way to get to know your organization. This
is an example of an embed-code. (Williams, 2013)
<iframe width="560" height="315"
src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cnbNYEAIAgg?rel=0" frameborder="0"
allowfullscreen></iframe>
10.6 E-MAILING LIST
Working with an e-mailing list is a form of direct marketing. Individuals receive a mail from your
organization with information, promotions or a call to action. This can be in different forms. The
most popular ones for NGO’s are newsletters or invitations for fundraising. Mailing is both effort- and
costless. Before you send your mail you need the e-mail addresses of course.
Create e-mailing lists
The oldest and most elementary way of gathering information is by simply asking people if you can
have their e-mail address. Whether it is after a business meeting or a simple chat in a bar, don’t be
afraid to ask if someone is interested in receiving a newsletter of your NGO.
Another popular way to ask for e-mail addresses is using a form on your website where you ask if
visitors are interested to stay informed and updated. You can do this with a field on the side of your
website or with an automatic pop-up. Most website developing software offer the possibility to
insert pop-ups. Don’t worry if your software doesn’t provide this option. There are a lot of websites
to help you. Just one example is this website: http://www.csgnetwork.com/puhtmlwincodegen.html.
Note that some browsers block pop-ups, so this can be a problem. The following image is an example
of a automatic e-mail subscription pop-up.
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Websites often ask for subscription during certain registrations. For most registrations an e-mail
address is needed. You can ask visitors to use this e-mail address to send them newsletters or emails.
There are multiple ways to collect e-mail addresses to increase your mailing lists. Sometimes people
are lured to give their personal information, including e-mail address in order to win a certain
product or service. Send a subscription link with Facebook, Twitter or other social media or advertise
your newsletter on your offline marketing.
When you get e-mails from potential volunteers or other contacts, you will automatically have their
e-mail address. Save your contacts and you will create your e-mailing network.
Manage your lists
To save yourself a lot of troubles or effort it is recommended to create contact lists. Make lists for
different target audiences. E.g. a list per continent, volunteers only, ex-volunteers, donors, staff,
subscribers through your website, partners, etc.. Not every mail you send concerns all of your
contacts. With separation you won’t annoy receivers and your mails won’t be seen as spam. For
NGO’s acting on different parts in the world it could be useful to have different language groups too.
Most personal information managing software such as Microsoft Outlook provide an easy to use
contact lists. They also help you import contacts from your social media to your contacts list. Other
services as Gmail also provide the same option.
Simply click go to “contacts” and click on “new group” to create a list or group. On other (online)
software it will come down to the same steps. Most of them offer a service to manage your contacts.
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Newsletters
Every e-mail address user has probably received a newsletter before. All kind of organizations use
them to inform a certain audience of the latest events, promotions, changes, etc.. It is good to have
an organized letter, sent out regularly. This can be every year, month, every week or even every day.
Be aware that writing a newsletter requires some time and effort, so If you don’t want to work under
too much pressure, it would be wise to choose for monthly newsletters.
Start with making a template for your newsletter. You can do this in any way you want. You can use
the text editor in the software you use to send your mails or more professional software. Word can
definitely do the job. Microsoft also offers Publisher, a more specialized program. People will be
tempted to read a newsletter with a nice layout more than just plain text.
Have a look in your inbox, search for newsletters you receive to get some inspiration or ideas. Here
are some examples of newsletters. (Webdesignerdepot, 2009)
This is an example of Quiksilver announcing its surf contest. They use a lot of hyperlinks, which
makes it easy for the reader to get more information and in the meanwhile for Quiksilver to redirect
readers to their website.
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A completely different example is the newsletter John Frusciante, a musician, sends to his fans who
subscribed on his website. He, or his marketing team, uses simple texts, with few visuals.
On the internet there are different guides telling you how to create your newsletter. The best thing is
to see for yourself and experiment. Try to look for different templates and see what is user-friendly
and attractive.
Small NGO’s don’t need to sell products, so they mostly focus on news about their projects or about
what is happening around them and what they achieved. Complicated templates with different
hyperlinks and other advanced techniques are unnecessary. On the website
http://workawesome.com/ you can find one of the many guides. It is a good manual for making your
first newsletters using Microsoft Word. What follows is a summary of this manual.
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The author uses 10 steps to create a newsletter. The first step is simply opening a new word
document. Next choose three columns in the “page layout” tab. Then double click on the top of the
page and add a title (e.g. OCN monthly newsletter ). Use a large font, so your title is bigger than the
text. In order to have a nice header, insert a rectangle behind the title and give it the color you want (
you can find “shapes” in the “insert” tab, there you can choose rectangle ). The rectangle will hide
the text. Just right-click on the shape and select “order” and “place behind text”. Next it is time to
insert your text. The actual news you want to share with the audience. The three columns will
provide a nice layout. To make it look more like a real article you can use a bigger font for the first
paragraph as the introduction. You can also insert a picture or highlight a quote by writing the quote
again in a bigger font and other color and in a separate text field. To make it complete you can add a
footer, matching your header, with additional information. (Pfreundner, 2012)
Here is what the result should more or less be like. You can change as much as you want to your own
preferences.
This image is an extract from: http://unbounce.com/
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10.7 FREE PUBLICITY
Free publicity is generally associated with newspapers and magazines. With the revolution they
couldn’t stay behind and soon online versions of these and new newspapers or magazines arose.
Since everything goes faster on the web, they need more content to keep updating their feed and to
fill their websites. Therefore they need articles, and that’s where marketers come in, in order to get
free publicity.
Online Press Releases
There are other methods to get this free publicity. Everyone can submit a press release on the
internet. There are specialized websites that help you broadcasting. One of them is www.PRLog.com.
Once you created an account and are logged in you have several options. You will see the your
dashboard with several options. PRlog is a sort of social network too, but not really popular, so this is
not the main reason you want to use this website. The interesting aspect is the press release option.
If you want to start your press release, click on “press releases”, next on “add new press release” and
you can get started. Complete the form by filling out the required fields.
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Headline: The headline is important to get the attention. Make sure it is related to the article.
Readers tend to get annoyed when they get misled by the title. Curiosity is a great weapon to
attract readers.
Summary: This is your first chance to “sell” your idea or story to journalists. This can’t be long
so make it clear and simple, but interesting.
Dateline: this is general information about the press release. This is filled out automatically
on PRlog.
Introduction: The introduction is the first paragraph of the actual press release. It includes
basic information such as: who are you, what are you writing about, why is it so special, etc..
Body: The body, including the introduction, will more or less form your article. Try to write in
different paragraphs from the same length. Your body can be from 3000 to 8000 characters.
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About: this is part is a reusable section. You can add background information about your
organization. This way journalists and readers get the bigger picture.
Media contact information: In this field you can give your contact details.
The following scheme is an extract of PR log’s website and shows the distribution of press releases.
Besides PR log there are other free press release websites. Some offer more services than others.
Have a look at them and see what you like the most. What follows are more examples:
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24-7 Press Release (www.24-7pressrelease.com)
1888 Press Release ( www.1888pressrelease.com)
Click Press ( www.clickpress.com)
EcommWire (www.ecommwire.com)
Express press release (www.express-press-release.com)
I Newswire (www.Inewswire.com)
PR Buzz (www.prbuzz.com)
…
HARO
On the world wide web there are more interesting websites that can help you out. HARO offers
another concept. HARO is the short version of Help A Reporter Out. Their service offers a link
between reporters or bloggers and organizations looking for an audience and with a story to tell.
HARO sends out mails with queries from journalists or bloggers. You can respond on these queries
and they will use your information or story.
So to get to work, first you will have to sign up, for as they say “ life-changing HARO publicity!”. Fill
out the form on the HARO homepage. Once registered you can complete your profile. Add your
location and details. An important part on your profile are your preferences.
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HARO sends out three mails per day to its users with queries from reporters. The queries you will
receive will correspond with your preferences. Once you have received mails with queries, look for
those that relate to your organization. Try to find queries that match your cause or story and help the
reporter out.
To do this you have to get the reporter email from the query, give the subject and start writing your
“pitch”. This means providing the reporter with information.
Be aware though that many reporters are looking for sources. It is possible that they use your
information but don’t use the name of your organization or don’t exactly quote your “pitch”.
Other services like this are:
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http://www.reporterconnection.com/
http://www.flacklist.com/
http://www.prnewswire.com/
…
Always look out for opportunities. Browse on the internet for websites or blogs and try to sell them
your story. You’ll never know if it might result in more free publicity.
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10.8 GOOGLE ADWORDS
Over the past years search engine optimization and search engine marketing became really popular.
Google Adwords is one of these search engine marketing software. It is a service Google provides to
advertise in the form of sponsored links. Every Google user has seen these ads before.
The first links in a search results are almost always sponsored links or advertisements companies.
Companies sometimes pay a lot of money to be the first on the list. Now, if you don’t have a
marketing budget, Google Adwords can be expensive. However if you have a small budget, Adwords
can help you a lot, since you can decide how much you spend and specifically choose your target.
Also Google sometimes offers starter coupons or vouchers for starters. If you are lucky to receive
free Adwords budget it is a great opportunity to, even if it is only for a short period, increase
awareness for your organization through Google.
It is easy to spend all your money on Adwords. It can even lead to bankruptcy before you would even
realize it. There are some basics you need to know before you start using your budget. It is a single
opportunity so it would be a shame if it was ruined from the start. Therefore you need to know the
basic principles.
How it works
organizations want to advertise to direct more internet users to their website. Therefore they need
an attractive advertisement. Advertising isn’t free. The way Adwords counts the total costs is through
clicks. When a user clicks on an ad, Google will charge a certain amount. In marketing terms this is
called CPC or cost per click. The cost of one click isn’t a fixed price. This changes per keyword.
Keywords
Since Adwords is a Google tool, its use is based on the search engine. This search engine operates
with keywords. People type in one or more keywords in the Google search bar and they will receive a
list of results based on these specific words.
On Adwords advertisers can target a certain audience using these keywords. E.g. Mercedes Benz will
have more chance to target his audience if they appear in search results of people using the keyword
“car” than for those using “ cats”. Some keywords are more expensive than others. The price is
based on a kind of bidding.
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There are a lot of possible keywords since people can look for every single word when they use
Google,
however some are more popular. Google has an interesting page
(http://www.google.com/trends/topcharts), showing the trends on the internet, based on the
keywords used. If you are on top of the results for one of these popular searches, the chance of
people seeing your ad will increase. But Google only shows a certain number of sponsored links.
Therefore people will start bidding to get a better place. They will accept a higher CPC to get on the
first page of results.
The next graph shows how much money some companies pay per click using specific keywords. For
the number one keyword “insurance” companies pay 54,91 dollar for one single click.
This image is an extract from: http://www.wordstream.com/
Google Adwords offers a Google Adwords Keyword tool. With this tool you can easily search for
keywords and their costs. There are some tricks to avoid a high CPC. Try to use combinations of
keywords. E.g. the CPC for “Immigration” is €0.61, while “Immigration service Belgium” only costs
€0.32. Another way to reduce the costs are using negative keywords. E.g. “no home” instead of
“homeless”.
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The advertisements
The advertisement is the actual contact with the audience. Your ads will be shown as side ads, on the
right side of the page next to the search results, or as top ads, as the first search results. An ad
consists of a headline, two description lines and a display URL. This display URL may be different from
the actual destination URL, the webpage were your ad will direct your audience to. The two
description lines can only be 35 characters each, so you have 70 in total to persuade the viewers.
Manage adwords
It is possible to launch multiple campaigns with your Adwords Account. In one campaign you can
have multiple “ad groups”. These ad groups are specific combinations of chosen keywords and the
shown ads. Ad groups can target specific audiences with adapted advertisements. You can name
your campaigns and ads, which makes it easy to manage them.
Start your campaign
Register or log in with an existing Google account on https://adwords.google.com/. Start creating
your campaign by clicking on “create a campaign” on the welcome page. If you are already in
Adwords you can click on the “New campaign” under the tab “Campaign”.
Fill out the fields and select your campaign settings. Choose a name, so you can easily recognize your
campaign amongst other campaigns on your account ( if you want to start more campaigns in the
future ). Make sure your bidding option is set to “I’ll manually set my bids for clicks”!
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If you let Adwords set your bids, you will end up with high CPC’s and you could lose your budget in
one hour. Another money-related option is your daily budget. Set your maximum you want to spend
per day, so you can plan your campaign based on your budget.
Creating your ad group is the next step. Again, name your ad group so your Adwords account stays
organized and structured. The first part of your ad group is the actual advertisement. Choose your
headline, description and display URL wisely. You can see a preview of your ad while you are typing.
In the help section of Adwords you can find some information on creating successful ads. Here are
some of the tips copied from their website (Google, 2013):
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“Highlight what makes your business, product, or offer unique”: put your strengths in the
picture by highlighting them.
“include prices, promotions, and exclusives”
“Tell your customers what they can do”: Insert calls to action in your ads or let viewers know
what they can do once they arrived on your website.
“Include at least one of your keywords in your ad text”
“Match your ad to your landing page”: The landing page is the actual page where the link of
the ad redirects viewers to. Make sure that people find on your website what convinced
them to click on your link.
…
The second part of creating your ad group is choosing keywords. You can either keywords manually
or use the keyword tool. Try to think as a customer or potential donor or volunteer, looking for a
random organization. Think of what they would search for and what keywords they would use.
Google Adwords advises to use a list between 5 to 20 keywords. Combinations of 2 or 3 words work
best. Also think of the purpose of your ad group. Do you want to have a lot of views and redirect
numerous visitors to your website or do you want to spend your money on people who are really
interested?
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The other possibility is to use the keyword tool. To go to the keyword tool, go to the tab “Tools and
analysis” and click on “Keyword tool”.
You can find keywords by giving a certain word or phrase, a website or category. The keyword tool
will look for related keywords. Make sure the “advanced options” such as languages or location is
set to your preferences. The keyword tool will give you lists of possible keywords with the
completion, global monthly searches and local monthly searches for every keyword or combination
of words. Based on this information you can try to find the best keywords. The monthly searches give
you an impression how frequent it is used. The competition gives you an idea of the price. With a
high competition the bids will be higher and your CPC will be higher.
It will take some time to figure out how everything works. You can edit your ad groups any time. You
can launch a campaign in one day, but it is a process. Look at the results to make changes to your
keywords, advertisements or campaigns. On the your homepage in Google Adwords you get an
analysis of your campaigns. Important information such as clicks, impressions, CTR, average CPC and
total costs. CTR or click through rate shows how many people actually click on your ad based on all
views. E.g. a CTR of 3 % means: three people out of hundred saw your advertisement and clicked
through to go to your website. Don’t expect too much. A CTR of only 1% to 3 % is already a success!
Learn from the results. With a high CTR you don’t have to change the copy of your advertisement.
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With a low CTR you will have to find out why people don’t want to click through. A high amount of
views shows that you chose the right keywords. If you have few views you will have to look for more
keywords.
These were only the Adworks basics. There are a lot more features and options on Adwords that
weren’t mentioned, so have a look and find out how you can enjoy Adwords and spend your little
money on good ads. The more you work with Google Adwords, the better your campaigns will get. It
is important to learn from your mistakes and keep on improving.
10.9 SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is another way to attract more visitors to your website. In
comparison to services like Adwords, SEO is free. It is a technique where webmasters edit the
content on their web pages in a specific way, so they will appear on the top spots in search engines.
With SEO you can change your position in organic search results, not in sponsored results.
Basic content
All search engines have an own algorithm. With this complicated and secret code, they browse the
web and show results in a list that should please and fulfill the needs of their users. Because the
algorithms are the base of success for the search engines it remains secret. What studies do prove is
that certain aspects come back every time on all prominent search engines. In order to have a good
position in search results your webpage apparently should contain certain standards. (Google, 2010)
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Words matter: First important thing are the words on your webpage. Search engines scan for
specific words in your content. If people search for “NGO”, it will browse the web and show
websites with the word “NGO” in it. So make sure that you have relevant words in your copy,
for search engines to find.
Titles matter: Search engines always look for the title of your page. This isn’t necessarily the
title as it is in your text. It is the title of the actual webpage that should summarize what the
page is about. When you create a webpage, this title is written like this: “<title>This is the
title of my webpage</title> “. Search engines will recognize this code and thus use this title.
Links matter: Links are important in SEO. When a site links to your website it mostly means
that they recommend your website. A lot of links to your website can be an indication of
valuable content, because you were recommended often. The more others link to your site,
the higher your ranking in the search results will be. Search engines also add weight to links
from trustworthy sites, since people sometimes try to build links to fool the algorithm.
Words in links matter: The words in books also matter. When someone uses a hyperlink to
your website using a certain word or combination of words, search engines will associate this
word with your website. ( e.g. someone uses great school in their text with a hyperlink to a
university website) Your website will be shown in the results when someone is looking for
that specific word.
Reputation matters: Algorithms are also able to scan reputation. A website with fresh
content and an increasing number of quality links can be seen as a promising website and
will get a better place in the ranking.
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The algorithms change all the time, so there is no permanent way to stay on top. Just make sure the
content on your website is of high quality and a high ranking will follow for sure. (Search Engine Land,
2013)
Site Architecture
Next to the text on your website the site architecture can help as well. Search engines browse or
“crawl” through all websites on the web and store information in their database. In order to get in
this database, you need to be found by these algorithms. Therefore your website has to be
“crawlable“. Normally regular websites are crawlable, but sometimes, when webmasters use
Javascript or Flash, links or words are hidden for the algorithm, which makes it difficult for search
engines to go through the whole page.
A way to solve this problem is using sitemaps. This is an easy to use overview of all pages on your
website. It is more or less the table of content on your website. Overall, if you have a user-friendly
webpage, it will also be search engine friendly.
There are several aspects you can keep in mind when you are writing or re-writing your webpage. For
more information, a good website is: http://searchengineland.com/
10.10 ARE YOU CHECKED IN?
Geomarketing is a term that overlaps with many fields of marketing. It can be related to mobile
marketing, in-store marketing, social media marketing, etc.. In general geomarketing focuses on
geographic information. Marketers use this factor for the planning, adapting and implementation of
their marketing strategies. This is vague information, because it is a broad term and geomarketing
covers a lot of areas. A useful area in geomarketing is geolocation with social media.
Foursquare
Foursquare is a popular location based website and app for people all around the world. It is a really
simple social media. People let their friends know where they are by “checking in” on certain places.
It became popular with the rise of smartphones and applications. Soon businesses saw the
possibilities of this media. When someone checks in at their store it is good and free publicity. To
increase the number of check-ins, some businesses started giving coupons or did special actions
using Foursquare. Foursquare offers free tools for businesses, so why not use them for your
organization too.
To start, sign up or register a personal account ( not an account for your organization ) on
Foursquare. When signing up synchronize with your organizations twitter account in order to get a
username.
Once registered and logged in, you will have to create a “listing” or in other words, your place on
foursquare. There are thousands of existing listings. People can just register it themselves, so it is
possible that your organization is already on Foursquare. You can claim this listing to complete the
profile and provide it with correct information. To claim your place you will have to go to
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https://foursquare.com/venue/claim. Sign in and go through the three steps in order to manage
your listing. You will have to validate your ownership by phone. The last step is verifying by mail. This
will take some time. Fousquare also offers a faster equivalent, but this will cost you 20 dollar. Once
you finally received your mail ( this can take up to a month ), you can insert the code to verify your
claim.
If your place doesn’t exist yet, you don’t need to claim your listing and go through a faster process.
On the page https://foursquare.com/add_venue you can add a place Foursquare. Fill out the form
with the correct information. You can choose “professional & other places” and select “ Non-Profit”
for category. Of course you may also choose another category, suiting your organization better.
Once saved, your organization is now in the Foursquare world. People can start checking in and
leaving hints and tips. You can do this too with your account. Promote your organization this way. If
someone checks in, it will be seen by their friends. This will increase the chance that they also will
check in if they arrive at your organization. The more check ins your NGO has, the more people have
seen the name of it and this free publicity is what you want.
Try to find ways to promote your venue.Creativity is the key here. There are a lot of ways to increase
the awareness. Here is just one idea:
Foursquare uses the term “mayor” for the person who checks in the most. Try to offer an incentive
for Foursquare users to become the mayor of your listing. Give them something for free or do
something for them. Make it fun, so more people will hear about it. This way you will make a small
competition out of it. For example: the directors of your NGO will cook a free meal for the person
who is mayor at the end of the month.
There are other websites and applications offering the same service, they mostly work in the same
way. Here are more examples (Campbell, 2010):
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Gowalla
Facebook places
Whrrl
Brightkite
Buzzd
GyPSii
…
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11 IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY
A lot of voluntary organizations or NGO’s have no income. They don’t sell products and the services
that they provide are completely free. The problem is that they do have their expenses. Luckily there
are still several ways to get some financial resources.
11.1 FUNDRAISING
One way to bring some money in by raising funds. This can be done in several ways. The main idea of
fundraising in general is too ask money and give something in return, mostly in form of
entertainment. Organizations can increase their budget organizing regular fundraisers.
In general organizations organize fundraisers as events. Before raising funds, an organization can set
a goal and choose a project or destination for the money. By adding a cause it is easier to convince
donors. They have an idea of where their money goes to. This will ease their minds. These events are
a good way to connect with donors. They probably want to be informed after giving money. The
more information they get the more engaged the donors will be. This can result in sustainable
relationships.
Types of fundraisers are endless. This can be in the form of a quiz, selling cookies or going door to
door and perform a little dance. There is more chance on success with a humorous and funny
compensation. People will give more money if they will get something in return. Stupid ideas can
bring up most money. Imagine someone going door to door and offer people to crack an egg on his
head for some money going to a good cause. This sounds crazy, but can be successful.
Other ways to raise funds can be found on the web. There are sites specialized in raising funds. Users
of the sites can add a page explaining why they need money. Then merciful people can donate an
amount of money to any cause of their interest.
www.gofundme.com is a site like this. Some people raise incredibly high amounts of money for their
causes using this site. There are various reasons for GoFundMe users to raise funds. Some have lost
their home from national disaster, others are really ill and need medical care. Some people can’t pay
funerals or others can’t afford their wedding. There is also a category for Non-Profit and charities.
This is one example of a fundraiser on GoFundMe. Most popular fundraisers are mostly related to
natural disasters or other disasters like the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Media increase
compassion for these subjects. Less famous campaigns can be successful too, but fundraisers have to
create this compassion themselves.
This image is an extract from http://www.gofundme.com/Home4Barbara
Starting a campaign is really easy and free. The important thing is telling your story, so people will
feel concerned or will have sympathy. If donors are interested or is convinced to help fight for the
cause, there is a more chance to raise funds. The next step is sharing your campaign on social media
in order to get fans or friends to help and donate.
A second website to raise funds online is http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/. The website is partner
of web stores like Amazon, Ebay, John Lewis, etc.. When an article is bought online, retailers donate
to a good cause. The client only pays for his product, so they don’t have extra costs. Organizations
can add their cause to easyfundraising.
Fill out the form in order to register, choose a convincing and clear name for your cause and start
promoting your project.
Other similar websites are:







http://piryx.com
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/giving/
http://www.firstgiving.com/
http://www.crowdrise.com/
http://www.giveforward.com/
http://www.justgiving.com/
…
87
11.2 GRANTS
There are various types of grants such as federal grants, private grants, public charity grants,
individual grants, non-profit grants and sponsorship grants. They are basically the same, you want
them to give you money. Getting grants isn’t just asking for money though. You have to know where
your organization will get money and where it could be rejected. To receive grants you might have to
meet a set of qualifications. Keep in mind that you will be more likely to get grants when your goals
match with the goals of the grant writer. There are foundations with specific interests, e.g. women
empowerment. It will be hard to get them warm for your sustainable farming project. Also know that
grant writers will be interested in your organization, the more information you can give them and the
more transparency you guarantee, the easier it will be for them to connect with your organization.
Therefore, of course it is really important to have a good structure and a well working organization.
Sloppy requests will be denied for sure. Once you have received your grant, be prepared to keep the
foundation informed. They will want to know what is going on and what you have been doing with
their money. (Dummies, 2013)
Here are some interesting websites that help you find the right foundations. (EFC, sd)




The foundation center ( http://foundationcenter.org/ )
The European Foundation center ( http://www.efc.be )
ECAS ( http://www.ecas-citizens.eu/ )
WINGS ( http://www.wingsweb.org/ )
88
11.3 VOLUNTEERS
11.3.1 VOLUNTEER FEE
A lot of organizations that are working with volunteers only, ask for a volunteer fee. This is a certain
amount of money that volunteers have to pay when they want to work at an organization. Some
organizations don’t ask a fee. Sometimes it seems a little unfair, because after all the volunteers
work for free already. Thus it is important to handle this with care. Treating volunteers is always a
key aspect, but especially when money is involved. Make sure that your organization isn’t fully
relying on these volunteer fees. You don’t want to work with constant uncertainty. Also important is
the fact that at a certain point volunteers could start to feel that they are only helping at your
organization by giving them money. The number one priority should be their volunteer experience
and not the money that they bring in. This way an organization could easily lose its soul or miss the
purpose.
The amount of fees varies a lot from organization to organization. An organization should consider
keeping the fee as low as possible for it can be a big turnoff for students that want to do a gap year
or other adolescents that just finished their studies and don’t have a big budget.
Also good to know is that there are websites that can help you advertising your organization or help
you look for volunteers. However when your fee is too high, they won’t provide this service. These
kind of organizations only list free or low cost volunteer opportunities.
When organizations do asks for a fee, they have to make sure their volunteers know why they have
to pay. In this case transparency is really important. Use some space on your website to
communicate about this. Tell them where the money goes to. Don’t brag about the effort you are
doing for them so you would feel better, but be honest. If volunteers can see the expenses an
organization has in order to provide them with their service, there is a higher chance that volunteers
will accept to pay the fee. An organization shouldn’t just give a list of vague facts as a defense. An
non-profit organization has to be secure. They ask the fee for a reason and should be able to give
numbers, specific costs per volunteer, so everyone can count how fair it is to pay or ask a volunteer
fee. It is also a good exercise for NGO’s to see whether they ask too much or too little. (Collins,
2002)
11.3.2 VOLUNTEER FUNDRAISER
If you are lucky to have a nice group of volunteers, sometimes they come up with own initiatives. You
can also push them in the right direction. There are several kind of fundraisers. You can do a
thousand sorts of activities, but the main focus is getting money. The more engaged volunteers you
have, the more opportunities you will have to do fundraisers. You don’t have to do a boring auction,
you can do scavenger hunts or smash eggs on your head for money.
What worked for Otra Cosa Network was a quiz night. This worked out really well. Of course you
have to bear in mind that you need some volunteers to plan it and enough candidates to play in the
89
quiz. Here are the guidelines. You can follow this example or it can give you inspiration for another,
even better fundraiser.
First of all you start with your purpose. If you want to raise money, choose a project or purpose and
set your goal. E.g. we have a skate ramp for poor children, but there is no money to repair it. This is
why we want to raise some money. We need to buy the wood and equipment, so the kids can skate
safely again.
Make sure your purpose is really clear, not only for yourself, but for it can help you with publicity.
People tend to give more money if they know where their money is going to. In order to get the
people warm, show videos or photos of your project, organization or purpose. The people will feel
more related to the purpose.
Choose your location. You need a place to hold your quiz ( or other event ). If you have a big room
available, than there is no problem. However if you’re not so lucky, you’ll have to ask around in your
area if there is a bar or a restaurant with some extra space available. Sometimes they want to gain
some money of it. If they have a big heart, the owner or employee will help you out. This can depend
on the notoriety of your organization. Always make sure that you have the permission to hold your
event on your location. Sometimes you need the official permission of the municipality.
If you want to attract visitors, publicity is really important. If you want to organize a big event you
have to start really early. For smaller events though, going to local pubs the night before is sufficient.
If you are in a rural area, it will be hard to find other people. Getting locals is great, but if you hold
your event in a touristic area it might be a great idea to get them to spend their money on your
fundraiser. Go to local hotels and hostels and you will find a lot of visitors. If you want to reach more
people, you can make flyers and posters. Create an event on Facebook or another event planner on
the web and spread the word! Make sure that you mention your purpose while you’re advertising
your event.
Drinks! An evening or afternoon without drinks is possible, but to keep your visitors happy, you
maybe need to serve some drinks. This is the most effective way to gain profits. Be aware that you
don’t want to ask too much money, because it still is a fundraiser and not a night in an expensive
club. Thirsty people can be hungry as well. Food can be a good idea, but mostly it is more work, so
little snacks are the best way to offer your customers something to eat. Popcorn, chips or nuts are
salty and will help you sell more drinks. You can always go for fruit as well. This is really cheap and
healthy! Bear in mind that you have to buy the drinks first, before you can sell them. You will need a
small budget to start with. The organization can give it or volunteers can advance the money.
(Garecht, 2011)
Now the event itself. Whether it is a quiz, a football game or fashion show, you have to make sure
that everything is planned. This is what your visitors will remember and why they are coming to your
fundraiser. Make sure it is fun. The satisfaction can help you with organizing events in the future.
Also people will stay longer and drink or eat more, etc.. A quiz is really cheap. You don’t need any
equipment. Of course if you want to make it more professional you might need a microphone or
projector, but in se a quiz only needs good questions. Don’t forget that the event is a fundraiser. You
want to make some money. You can charge an entry fee, but again don’t ask too much.
90
In addition a little inspiration of how a quiz can be more fun:
Don’t make your questions too difficult, it will make them feel smart. Bear in mind that they can get
drunk if they drink too much. This can be a useful element for your quiz.
Make questions based on the experience of your teams about the area, whether they are tourists,
locals or volunteers. You can ask about the area or previous events. They will be proud that they
know the place and feel like locals.
Make it an interactive quiz. Let them do stupid things, sing a song out loud or let them dance. Also
make sure that there are enough intermissions, so the people can get their drinks or can go for a
smoke or toilet break.
When the quiz is over it is nice for the people to know how much money they raised. They will feel
good and feel like they contributed to something good. That is the feeling that you want them to
have.
91
12 ATTACHEMENTS
Attachement 1: exit interview
Exit interview questionnaire
Date: __________
OTRA COSA NETWORK
BEFORE ARRIVAL
How did you find Otra Cosa Network?
How was your experience with the Otra Cosa Website?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Excellent
9
10 Excellent
What was good/bad about the website?
Did you get what was offered on the website? If not, what was different?
How was your communication with OCN before you arrived?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
were there any problems in communicating with OCN?
DURING YOUR STAY
What score would you give OCN for helping you getting started with your project.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Did you ever felt left on your own?
92
Do you feel that OCN was there for you when you had any problems?
Not at all
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Definitely
How was the contact with the OCN management?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Excellent
What do you think of the contact you had with OCN management? Do you have any complaints or
recommendations?
How was your experience with the other volunteers?
How would you rate your experience with the other volunteers?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Excellent
How can OCN make your experience more enjoyable?
Would you recommend OCN to your friends or acquaintances? Why or why not?
PROJECT OR PARTNER ORGANIZATION
What was your project? ____________________________________
How was the reception of the project you were working with?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Excellent
Did you have any problems with your reception?
How was the workload and the responsibilities that you had on your project?
Too little
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Too much
How many hours did you have to work per week?
Was this too much or too little?
What responsibilities did you have and was this what you expected?
93
How satisfying was your volunteer experience ?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Excellent
Do you feel that you made a difference for your organization?
What could you have done better to make your experience worthwhile?
What could OCN or your project organization could have done to make your experience more
worthwhile?
Would you recommend OCN to keep on working with your project?
Not at all
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Definitely
OVERALL
What score would you give OCN overall?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Excellent
8
9
10 Excellent
Why?
What score would you give your overall volunteer experience?
Poor
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Why?
Any other remarks, complaints or recommendations?
94
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No-budget marketing for NGO`s

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