Public Relations Commentary

Increasingly, public relations pracititioners have to know not only how to write for the Web, but also how to manage and respond to blog postings. This blog was created to use in my public relations courses to help my students prepare to blog and learn how to respond to others in a virtual yet professional manner.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Repositioning Fundraising

I agree that fundraising strategies have become stagnant. It is hard to argue from the article's research anything but the need for new communication and tactics.

What I was a little disappointed with was the article overall. It started strong, talking of how much things need to change for the increasingly older generation, how contributions have remained the same over the last century, how large the charitable sector has grown, etc.

I appreciated the PEST analysis and the paradigm explanation... but it stopped there. I was hoping for new and exciting tactics to back up this data. Nada. So, I know how big the problem is now... but how do we solve it? I am always up for knowledge on fundraising. I guess maybe I was expecting too much!

1 Comments:

  • At 11:37 PM, February 11, 2008, Blogger Emily Burnett said…

    I agree that there weren’t many concrete examples of how to improve fundraising, but I think the article’s point was to increase awareness about the changing environment and to explain that tactics need to change too. Maybe the article didn’t get specifics because it really depends on your organization’s mission and target audience?

    The article, along with our readings on relationships from last week, got me thinking about another approach to attracting donors- start forming relationships with younger groups to get them involved so they will become loyal donors in the future. One example of this is a non-profit in Raleigh, the International Affairs Council. They started a group called Young Professionals which is a social and networking group for young people in the area with an interest in “international.” The group did not generate any income for the organization but was simply a way for people with similar interests to get together for drinks, dinner, and internationally related events in the area. The goal of the organization was to form a relationship with these individuals in the area in hopes that they would eventually become members of the organization and donate time and money to their cause. I think this is a smart strategy and I wonder if other organizations have successfully used this method. For this to be successful, it is important for the organization to be aware of different tactics needed for the different target groups and how this might change over time as this article mentioned.

     

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