Competition Begets a Unified Voice?
Initially this was a response to Sarah's posting below, however it turned out long and I thought it would be a good post, albeit late.
We have spoken about how NPOs need to have a unified voice. One thing that stops them from having a unified voice is that there are so many non-profits that are similar but not alike. Additionally, to the kudos of many npos, very few want to drift from their own specific missions. They want to stay the specific, special entity that they are, however that is not conducive towards speaking with a unified voice.
I know there is a lot of competition in the non-profit arena, but is there more in the corporate arena? And what is the alternative to being an unsuccessful company in either one? Non-existance - or on a lesser scale the fear of non-existence. In the business world this shows itself as mergers and assimilations of companies (look at the media environment after the 1996 telecommunications act): eight major companies survived.
Perhaps the reason there is so many npos that still survive is that there isn't enough competition. The only reason the world is getting smaller is because humanity is getting larger. This means that organizations are getting lost, or really assimilated. They don't cease to exist entirely, just cease to exist as they did in the past.
Competition seems to be a good thing. It yields the best of the best, or at least it is supposed to. NPOs are good at hanging on and because it is a different environment that places emphasis on adhering to the mission before the bottom line (generally), therefore the mission comes before commercial success, lending them to hold on longer and be more creative in their survival techniques. Three being marketing, IMC and public relations.
They function to grease the wheels of business and they will certainly do the same for NPOs and those that embrace and take advantage of this grease will be more competitive and have a leg up on nonprofits that fail to do so.
So I think it does create more competition, which is bad for any NPO that is unable to compete, but good for a more unified voice of nonprofits. It seems to be working for the big eight media conglomerates. The only difference in NPO is the locations of the mission and the bottom line.
We have spoken about how NPOs need to have a unified voice. One thing that stops them from having a unified voice is that there are so many non-profits that are similar but not alike. Additionally, to the kudos of many npos, very few want to drift from their own specific missions. They want to stay the specific, special entity that they are, however that is not conducive towards speaking with a unified voice.
I know there is a lot of competition in the non-profit arena, but is there more in the corporate arena? And what is the alternative to being an unsuccessful company in either one? Non-existance - or on a lesser scale the fear of non-existence. In the business world this shows itself as mergers and assimilations of companies (look at the media environment after the 1996 telecommunications act): eight major companies survived.
Perhaps the reason there is so many npos that still survive is that there isn't enough competition. The only reason the world is getting smaller is because humanity is getting larger. This means that organizations are getting lost, or really assimilated. They don't cease to exist entirely, just cease to exist as they did in the past.
Competition seems to be a good thing. It yields the best of the best, or at least it is supposed to. NPOs are good at hanging on and because it is a different environment that places emphasis on adhering to the mission before the bottom line (generally), therefore the mission comes before commercial success, lending them to hold on longer and be more creative in their survival techniques. Three being marketing, IMC and public relations.
They function to grease the wheels of business and they will certainly do the same for NPOs and those that embrace and take advantage of this grease will be more competitive and have a leg up on nonprofits that fail to do so.
So I think it does create more competition, which is bad for any NPO that is unable to compete, but good for a more unified voice of nonprofits. It seems to be working for the big eight media conglomerates. The only difference in NPO is the locations of the mission and the bottom line.
posted by Paul Jonas @ 9:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home