This article is written by: Mr. Muhannad Al-Subaie
Note: "The opinions expressed in this article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the employer to which I belong"
Nonprofit Sector Definition?
The third sector (nonprofit sector) is one of the sectors that can benefit from marketing research applications and harness its results in the decision-making process.
Introduction:
Between hypotheses that need to be proven, issues that need to be understood, or a person who needs services and products to help him solve his problems and overcome his challenges, or a beneficiary whose voice we need to hear and express what he needs or what he has obtained. Marketing research is a very broad field in terms of practical applications, but its results in most cases support decision-making, and the third sector is one of the sectors that can benefit from marketing research applications and harness its results in the decision-making process. First, we must think of any charitable organization from a five-pronged perspective: the issue, leadership, resources, management, and impact.
The Issue
It is an aspect that marketing research can enrich by studying the beneficiaries through field research and investigation, not through discussion in closed meetings. All social issues that need to be addressed by the third sector are initially put in the form of hypotheses, after which field studies are conducted to prove or refute the hypotheses related to specific social issues, as well as to understand the issue and the target audience, and then develop products and programs.
It is recommended to design products and programs using the Human Centred Design methodology, and one of the ways to do this is to obtain sufficient information about this targeted person about whom information is collected in order to provide products or programs to serve him by employing marketing research for this purpose. In my personal opinion, most of the third sector organizations that failed lost their way because they forgot the person and rushed to inflate the organization and its resources instead of focusing on the beneficiary group to determine the purpose of its existence as an entity.
Leadership
The role of marketing research may focus on the leadership side (Board of Trustees) by conducting a bipolar opinion poll, whereby the opinion of the organization’s members about leadership and its role in the organization’s growth is investigated, and vice versa, the opinion of the leadership about the members and their role and effectiveness in driving the wheel of growth is investigated, and then the results are reviewed to analyze the gap between the two evaluations in order to reduce it, as there are many organizations in the third sector that have failed to expand and may have disappeared due to the lack of harmony between the leadership’s orientations and the orientations and values of the workers in these organizations, whether paid or voluntary.
Leadership is also interested in analyzing competitors. Competitors in the charitable field? Are there organizations that run similar programs to the organization? How do they do what they do? Why do they stand out in what they do? What are their strengths and weaknesses? This aspect of analyzing the competitive environment can be served by marketing research. Also, research that interests leadership usually includes image or reputation research, as unfortunately many charitable organizations and institutions have painted themselves with a religious or ideological tint, and other organizations have later realized this and restored their neutrality.
The question is: Does the organization have a specific ideological color? How does this color affect donor attraction or rejection? Do any of the organization’s members disclose on social media that they are members of the organization, do they speak on its behalf, and what is the color of their speech and posts? All of these topics can be examined by (descriptive) marketing research to provide many insights into the mental image associated with the organization, what should be maintained, and what should be corrected over time.
Resources
The capital of any charitable organization is donors or donors who give in the form of cash grants and the like, and if any organization does not have a clear system and procedures for managing donor relations, this is a harbinger of imminent failure. Therefore, organizations can conduct research related to identifying the reasons and motives that drive donors to donate to certain associations and entities rather than others, as one of the hypotheses says that those working on it (employees concerned with collecting donations from specific donors) are the basis for the success of any organization, so someone donates to a certain organization because someone else works in it and not for the reputation of the organization and its mental image in his imagination, as I mentioned, it is just a hypothesis, but if it is proven, then the organization can follow a strategy to attract distinguished employees in their relationships and network of acquaintances.
Desk research also plays a great role in monitoring many important sources that the organization can rely on to develop its resources and strategies. The Internet is full of rich and important sources, and all you need is someone with skills in desk research, specifically search engine optimization (SEO) skills, and the ability to reach the right sources very quickly.
Management
Is the hierarchical administrative structure in the organization the best for the nature of the organization's work? And how have global organizations succeeded in managing themselves in innovative, low-cost ways and with a cluster or flat structure without creating many bureaucratic administrative ranks? I am not challenging your current structure here, as I have no idea about it, but the role of marketing research in supporting the management of any charitable organization may lie in providing them with the best standards and best practices (Best Practice). Take Oxfam, for example, as a case study. It would not have reached what it has reached if best practices had been applied in its projects, and it would not have created that positive mental image around it without the benevolence in what it provides.
Impact
It means studying the return on social investment, and there is a reliable methodology for this which was developed by leading organizations on behalf of the British Ministry of Social Affairs. Search for Social Return on Investment SROI.
There is a saying that says, you cannot manage what you cannot measure, such as a survey of the satisfaction of beneficiaries of training programs, relief, advocacy, etc., the satisfaction of attendees of workshops or seminars. All of this can be measured in order to know the impact of the success of such programs on the ground, and these results can be recycled to be used in the public relations and marketing activity of the organization itself to build more confidence in it and improve the mental image associated with it.
To wrap things up, these are just seeds of thought—an opening that begs for deeper exploration, real-world application, and inspiring success stories of organizations that have harnessed the power of marketing research. This is but a humble contribution, with the true path forward guided by insight and experience.