I have been involved in the non-governmental sector for 20 years. The beginning was at the students’ representation of Vilnius University. For the last 11 years, I have been together with the Aukok.lt team. I think I have enough experience allowing me to have a pretty sharp and straightforward understanding of what an NGO is selling. Yes, exactly – “selling”. A statement with a commercial spice but in the context of modern capitalism and globalization, a different perception has very limited and complicated existence conditions. After all, even business oriented to profit and value-added creation can have a noble aim corresponding to the complex and sensitive needs of the public, for example, to develop more effective cancer detection or treatment equipment, produce vaccines, electric cars, and so on. Similarly, an NGO focused on a noble aim can create added value for the public or a smaller, sensitive in some aspect group of people.
The pivot of my NGO’s usefulness assessment is the question “What is the return of the organization’s performance to the public or a narrower interest group in the chosen unit of time?” If you try to assess the activity of your organization from such a perspective, it will be easier for you to communicate with the business from which you expect material, financial assistance. You will have a better understanding of what business to include in long-term cooperation so that it would benefit in the longer run. And I mean that the benefit is not like you put the company logo on the promotional material and the sponsor on his/her website bragged that it’s a socially responsible business. I am talking about such real benefits as more better-skilled employees in the Lithuanian labor market (Lithuania is already facing a large shortage of highly-skilled employees), a less stressful working environment for existing employees, a more attractive environment for foreign investors, and so on. In terms of concrete examples, the project “I Choose to Teach” (Lith. “Renkuosi mokyti”) directly corresponds to the interest of any business that the education system would raise the IQ of the public and make higher-skilled professionals more accessible to business.
NGO by nature is, has been, and should be a catalyst for the well-being of the public, and business is inevitably an integral part of the public and its success also depends on the environment in which it functions. At the moment, I still see a significant lack of awareness that both governmental and non-governmental organizations provide services for which the resident pays in one way or another by paying taxes and making donations. Therefore, it doesn’t matter which angle of the approach you choose – NGO sells services. And where there are sales, there should be a return or otherwise – benefit.
I am sure that when you seek support from business, you usually hear the following questions “What are the benefits for us?”, “What do we get out of it?”. For business, these are very natural, everyday questions because their clients (whether it’d other companies or private clients) also ask them this question. Even you ask this question to the entities (during your personal shopping trips) who offer you something to buy in exchange for money. A business usually functions in an environment of stronger or weaker competition, where the winner is the one who can be more exceptional and can offer greater benefits. And by the way, it really isn’t the case that the lowest price determines everything. When communicating with the business, NGO usually answers the questions I have mentioned by submitting an advertising grid offer, which shows the positions of the sponsors and the placement of logos, the names of the shares sold, and so on. I am not saying that these suggestions need to be abandoned, but I do say that they must remain in the background. Communication is not the essence of the project, but a mean to achieve the goal of the project. Your task is not to publicize the sponsors, but to find project clients, partners, volunteers, donors (business invests to attract even more support), involve the public, and so on. So if you provide a communication grid when answering the business question “Who do we get out of it?”, it means that you are simply selling advertising space, competing with other sellers of similar service (other NGOs that also are acting like this) and with the rest of the advertising space sellers (advertising agencies, portals, television, outdoor billboards, radio, etc.). I think an NGO is not very competitive in this context of the advertising market. With such a framework for cooperation, your project will be funded from the costs line for marketing and advertising. Is social responsibility a marketing issue? Should the decision to provide support be taken only by the marketing department? I believe that the decision must be made by an individual or a group of individuals who shape a long-term business strategy by evaluating the broader field of the operation of the organization and thinking about the return of more than one sponsorship campaign (2 months of cheap advertising airtime).
So what does NGO sell? Ask yourself this question. Not having an answer doesn’t necessarily mean your activity isn’t needed. You just don’t have the right form and reasoned words to name the benefits you create for the interested groups. Look for the answer to this question. Talk to the business about the net usefulness of your activity, not about the advertising space, which is just a tactical tool to achieve the main goal.
