Masters Degrees (Social Work)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (Social Work) by Author "Bezuidenhout, Annemarie"

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    Essential marketing principles for non-profit organisations: Views of marketing managers
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Bezuidenhout, Annemarie; Engelbrecht, Lambert; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Social Work.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The non-profit organisations in South Africa, as in the rest of the world, are facing major funding challenges. Non-profit organisations rely on a wide range of income sources such as government subsidy, grants from foundations, corporate support, individual giving, church contributions, fees, product sales and special events. However, NPOs are struggling to keep up with the decline in financial resources, the increase in the number of non-profit organisations and the mounting competition among NPOs. A funding crisis in the non-profit sector in SA was foreseen since the global economic crisis in 2008. NPOs are in a sustainability crisis and marketing is one of the key elements to ensure sustainability. Marketing is critical to the success of every organisation, be it for-profit or non-profit organisations. Non-profit organisations are selling their organisation’s mission, their ideas, their programmes and their services and they need to increase their income to fulfil their mission. Non-profit organisations do realise the importance of marketing for their survival, but they still lack understanding of the principles underlying the marketing concept and how to operationalise it. The goal of the study was to determine the essential marketing principles for non-profit organisations as viewed by marketing managers. Permission to conduct the study was granted by the Research Ethics Committee for Human Research at the University of Stellenbosch. A literature study was conducted to investigate the scope and size of the NPO sector, the funding challenges of NPOs, the need for marketing, and the essential marketing principles for non-profit organisations. For the empirical study, the researcher identified 20 marketing managers who specifically have experience in working with or for non-profit organisations. A qualitative approach was deemed the most suitable in establishing the essential marketing principles according to marketing managers. Semi-structured, one-to-one interviews were conducted with the marketing managers in order to gather data on their views on essential marketing principles for non-profit organisations. The results of this study mostly confirmed the findings from the literature study which showed that marketing is a necessity for NPOs and that all the identified marketing principles are essential for NPOs. It became evident that NPOs should become more market-oriented and that they should implement marketing strategies. From the responses from the participants, it was also apparent that a lack of marketing expertise as well as inadequate leadership and management skills are prevalent in the NPO sector. Recommendations are aimed at developing the leadership, management and marketing skills of NPOs and applying the essential marketing principles. Suggestions for future research are also made to address the accountability of NPO leadership, to develop a framework for market-orientated organisations and to delve deeper into the marketing principles for NPOs in order to develop a strategy for non-profit marketing. Further research is also suggested regarding more innovative business models for NPOs to ensure sustainability.