Marketing a Good or Bad Mindset for Not- for-profit Organizations?

Few nonprofits have marketing departments and even fewer embrace marketing as an important part of operations. Throughout the history of the nonprofit sector marketing has almost been a bad word, but there are many reasons these ideas are changing. Most nonprofit organizations now, recognize the need to broaden their activities beyond the production of services or advocacy to focus on the clienteles they are trying to reach.

One definition for the term marketing includes: any action, process, or situation implemented for the purpose of selling a product, service, or idea. The word selling is where most people have a problem. In a Non-profit organization there is no such thing as selling. There is programming, fundraising, recruitment, accounting, grant writing, but absolutely no selling. Or do non-profit organizations sell?

Selling is nothing but a way to make products, services, or ideas desirable to another person so that they try to obtain those products, services, or ideas. An employee can sell a good idea to his boss in the same way the YMCA can sell memberships to potential members.

What does it mean to sell a product, service, or idea? three things must happen before you can say something was sold: 1. A business or person must be helped or improved, 2. The person being sold must feel the same way about a product as the salesperson feels, 3. Everyone within the transaction must understand enough infromation about the product that they respond with positive actions.

Well, Non-profits certainly do not have a title position called salesperson or account representative, but everyone in the organization ought to be a salesman for the organization. What is the role of the “salesperson” in a not-for-profit? MARKETING!

Making services/programs available
Arranging materials to be easily understood & desirable by "markets”
Relaying feedback to the upper management or board
Keeping all profitable markets open (succesful programs open too)
Encouraging new ideas & new markets to buy into the mission
Targeting specific markets that may have interest in the mission
Investigating new ideas and
Nudging people to for financial resources: donations, grants, or program
Growing the organization because of successful segmentation