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UNIVERSITY IN MARIBOR FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MARIBOR
MASTER THESIS
Nihada Prnjavorac
Maribor, November 2015
UNIVERSITY IN MARIBOR FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MARIBOR
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MARKETING ACTIVITIES IN TWO SLOVENIAN NONPROFIT
ORGANIZATIONS
Komparativna analiza socialnega marketinga v dveh neprofitnih slovenskih organizacijah
Candidate: Nihada Prnjavorac Study program: MA of Economics and Business Study orientation: Marketing Management Mentor: Prof. Aleksandra Pisnik, PhD. Academic year: 2015/2016
Maribor, November 2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my mentor for her guidance and advice, my friends Vesna, for helping develop the initial idea, and Elena, for her constant support and encouragement in moments when I was not sure how to continue.
Special »thank you« goes to the most important people in my life, my family, for their endless support.
ABSTRACT
Nonprofit organizations play an important role in today’s society. And although defining them is not an easy task, authors do agree they exist to provide for the general betterment of society. Their scope of work goes way beyond selling everyday products or offering everyday services.
Just as for-profit-organizations, they use marketing in their activities, but with one difference: their activities are directed to the benefit of their target groups. By applying marketing principles and techniques, they influence voluntary behaviors of their target audiences in order to improve theirs and the well-being of society in general. This is defined as social marketing, a term that is relatively new and misunderstood by many.
This thesis focuses on defining social marketing and explores the use of marketing in two nonprofit organizations in Slovenia with an aim of changing behaviors of society towards their target audiences.
The empirical study was conducted in Maribor, Slovenia in May/June 2015 with representatives of two Slovenian nonprofit organizations: Friends of Youth Association in Maribor (ZPM Maribor) and Association Sonček Maribor (Sonček Maribor).
In-depth interviews focused on the respondents’ understanding of marketing, their organizations’ activities and goals, as well as their plans to apply marketing in order to change behaviors of society towards their target groups.
The analysis of the research presents the findings on how the nonprofit organizations in Slovenia use marketing, what is the relevance of social marketing in their scope of work and what are the resources they need to improve the use of social marketing.
The analysis of the research showed they are not familiar with the meaning of social marketing, but they do understand the importance of marketing, especially promotion and public relations.
Financial and human resources are identified as the biggest obstacles for these organizations and remain also as their biggest challenges in achieving their goals.
Keywords: nonprofit organizations, nonprofit sector, third sector, social marketing, social behavior
POVZETEK
Neprofitne organizacije igrajo zelo pomembno vlogo v današnji družbi. In čeprav njihova opredelitev ni enostavna, se avtorji strinjajo, da neprofitne organizacije obstajajo za zagotavljanje splošne izboljšave v družbi. Njihov obseg dela daleč presega prodajo vsakdanjih izdelkov ali ponudbo vsakodnevnih storitev.
Enako kot pridobitne organizacije, neprofitne organizacije tudi uporabljajo marketing v svojih aktivnosti, vendar z eno razliko: njihove dejavnosti so usmerjene v korist njihovih ciljnih skupin. Z uporabo marketinških načel in tehnik, vplivajo na prostovoljno vedenje svojih ciljnih skupin, z namenom njihovega izboljšanja in blaginje družbe na splošno. Prav to je definicija socialnega marketinga, ki je relativno nov in pogosto napačno razumljen.
Ta teza se osredotoča na opredelitev socialnega marketinga in raziskuje uporabo marketinga v dveh neprofitnih organizacijah v Sloveniji z namenom spreminjanja vedenja družbe do njihovih ciljnih skupin.
Empirična raziskava je bila izvedena v Mariboru, v Sloveniji maja in junija 2015 s predstavniki dveh slovenskih neprofitnih organizacij: Zveze prijateljev mladine v Mariboru (ZPM Maribor) in Mariborskega društva za cerebralno paralizo Sonček Maribor (Sonček Maribor).
Namen poglobljenih intervjujev je bil ugotoviti koliko anketiranci poznajo in razumejo marketinga, kakšni so cilji in aktivnosti njihovih organizacij, ter kakšni so njihovi načrti glede uporabe marketinga z namenom spreminjanja vedenja družbe do njihovih ciljnih skupin.
V analizi raziskave so predstavljene ugotovitve o tem, kako neprofitne organizacije v Sloveniji uporabljajo marketing, kakšen je pomen socialnega marketinga v njihovem področju dela in kaj so sredstva in resursi, ki jih potrebujejo za izboljšanje uporabe socialnega marketinga.
Analiza raziskave je pokazala, da niso seznanjeni s pomenom socialnega marketinga, vendar pa razumejo pomen marketinga, zlasti promocijo in odnose z javnostmi.
Finančna sredstva in kadri so označeni za največje ovire za te organizacije in bodo tudi ostali kot njihovi največji izzivi pri doseganju organizacijskih ciljev.
Ključne besede: neprofitne organizacije, neprofitni sektor, tretji sektor, socialni marketing, družbeno vedenje
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introducing the research field and the research ........................................................................... 1
1.2 Purpose and goals of the research ................................................................................................ 4 1.2.1 Purpose ..................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2.2 Goals ......................................................................................................................................... 4
1.3 Research design and research model ........................................................................................... 5 1.3.1 Design and research model ...................................................................................................... 5 1.3.2 Research Questions .................................................................................................................. 5
1.4 Hypotheses .................................................................................................................................. 6
1.5 Implementation of the research ................................................................................................... 8
1.6 Methods ....................................................................................................................................... 8
1.7 Ethics .......................................................................................................................................... 10
1.8 Assumptions and limitations ...................................................................................................... 10
2 MARKETING IN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS ................................................. 11
2.1 An introduction to marketing in the nonprofit sector ................................................................. 11 2.1.1 THE NONPROFIT SECTOR ........................................................................................................ 11 2.1.2 MARKETING IN NONPROFITS .................................................................................................. 15
2.2 Social marketing ......................................................................................................................... 18
2.3 Nonprofits and social marketing in Slovenia .............................................................................. 24 2.3.1 THE THIRD SECTOR IN SLOVENIA ............................................................................................ 24 2.3.2 SOCIAL MARKETING IN SLOVENIA .......................................................................................... 28
3 EMPIRICAL PART ........................................................................................................ 30
3.1 Research methodology ............................................................................................................... 30
3.2 Case studies ............................................................................................................................... 33 3.2.1 FRIENDS OF YOUTH ASSOCIATION MARIBOR ......................................................................... 33 3.2.2 CEREBRAL PALSY SOCIETY SONČEK MARIBOR ........................................................................ 35
3.3 The interviews ............................................................................................................................ 37
4 TESTING THE HYPOTHESES - PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS AND
EVALUATION ......................................................................................................................... 39
4.1 Qualitative analysis and interpretation ...................................................................................... 39 4.1.1 THE INTERVIEWS ..................................................................................................................... 40 4.1.2 TESTING HYPOTHESES ............................................................................................................ 43
5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 61
6 LITERATURE AND SOURCES .................................................................................... 65
6.1 Literature ................................................................................................................................... 65
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1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introducing the research field and the research
In a profit world, there are numerous organizations whose impact and success in achieving their goals cannot be measured by and which overcomes the profit they achieve.
Nonprofit organizations, often called nonprofits, non-governmental organizations or voluntary organizations, are very common today and their number is increasing every day.
Usually, a nonprofit is born as an idea by a group of people who have a will to change a certain problem and, as Peter Drucker (1990, 33) said, they exist to make a difference in society and in a life of an individual.
So, they play a significant role in every society, as they are providing services varying from health to social welfare to millions of people (Sargeant 1999, 7).
Rončević (2002, 48) points out there is no unique name for all the organizations which belong to this social sphere and explains that different terms are in use in different regions, according to environmental specifics. This is why in the USA, besides the term non-governmental, this sector is usually also referred to as nonprofit.
Črnak-Meglič and Vojnovič (1997, 153) present nonprofit-voluntary sector as an important instrument of democratization and pluralization of relations, extension of individual possibilities and freedom of choice of individuals and an increase of active participation in modern society.
Numerous authors also refer to nonprofit organizations as the third sector, which, according to Rončević (2001, 23), describes all organizations which are “neither profit-oriented nor governmental agencies nor bureaucracies” (Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 2).
Corry (2010, 11) points out that third sector is often associated with civil society and voluntary work. He explains that "in practice, third sector is used to refer to widely differing kinds of organizations such as charities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), self-help groups, social enterprises, networks, and clubs, to name a few that do not fall into the state or market categories" (Ibid.,11).
He also quotes definition by European researchers who define third sector organizations as “organizations with an explicit aim to benefit the community, initiated by a group of citizens and in which the material interests of capital investors is subject to limits” (Ibid.,15).
Anyhow, the number of nonprofit organizations is growing, which is a result of a need for another partner, besides state and business, which represents specific interests of individuals and groups (Tihi 1999, 573).
Črnak-Meglič and Vojnovič (1997, 164-165) quote Salamon and Anheier (1997, 9), who highlight that third sector organizations share five common characteristics:
− they are organized - they possess some institutional reality,
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− they are private - institutionally separate from government,
− they are non-profit-distributing - not returning any profits generated to their owners or directors,
− they are self-governing - equipped to control their own activities,
− they are voluntary, at least in part - they involve some meaningful degree of voluntary participation, either in the actual conduct of the agency’s activities or in the management of its affairs.
As for the structure and areas of work, they write the nonprofit organizations act in four areas:
− education and research,
− health,
− social services and
− culture and sports (Ibid., 169).
Kotler and Levy were the first to introduce the idea of marketing in nonprofit organizations, so today, it is an important part of strategies of faculties, hospitals, museums, political parties, charities etc. (Kotler 2008, 32).
The term social marketing was introduced by Kotler and Zaltman (1971, 5) who defined it as “the design, implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution and marketing research”.
Social marketing can be carried out by anyone and it seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society. It does not market the product itself, but influences a social behavior (Andreasen and Kotler, 2003, 329).
Though the authors agree on the importance of the use of social marketing in nonprofits, they also agree on the absolute lack of literature, research and texts on social marketing in general (Kotler and Lee 2008; Lefebvre 2011, 54; McKay-Nesbitt and DeMoranville 2012, 54; Gordon 2011, 83).
Social marketing is relatively new term in Slovenia and there is a huge lack of understanding of the term itself, as well as of its capacity to change behaviors (Kamin 2011, 1657). Third sector organizations in Slovenia mainly work in the fields of education and culture and their role is only to fill in the gaps in the services of the public sector (Črnak-Meglič 2000, 156).
Rončević (2001, 32) emphasizes that numerous Slovenian nonprofit organizations have „weak organizational structure, small number of members and few paid or employed members and experts“.
I agree with Kamin (2011, 1658) that the term social marketing should be clearly defined, as well as terms such as the third sector, nonprofit, nongovernmental and voluntary organizations.
Based on the literature analysis, this master thesis addresses the situation in nonprofit sector in Slovenia and the use of social marketing, focusing on two Slovenian organizations: Zveza Prijateljev Mladine, Maribor (The Friends of Youth Association,
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Maribor) and Sonček – Mariborsko društvo za cerebralno paralizo (Sonček - Maribor Society for Cerebral Palsy).
Zveza Prijateljev Mladine Maribor (ZPM Maribor) is an independent, voluntary, nongovernmental, nonprofit and humanitarian organization. It is a network of organizations, dedicated to ensuring and promoting children rights.
Sonček - Maribor Society for Cerebral Palsy (Sonček Maribor) is a nonprofit, nongovernmental and nonpolitical organization for people with disabilities and their parents.
Both of these organizations belong to the group of organizations dealing with “Community Involvement Behaviors to Impact” (Kotler and Lee 2008, 21), as they are trying to improve the quality of life of their target groups - children and children with disabilities and their parents and are promoting mentoring, voluntary work and donating time and financial means to charity.
In my research, I focus on their understanding of marketing and social marketing, attitudes towards social marketing and make a comparative analysis of these two organizations and their use of the social marketing activities in their everyday work.
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1.2 Purpose and goals of the research
1.2.1 Purpose
As suggested by Patton (2002, 213), this is a basic research, with a purpose to contribute to the existing body of knowledge and theory.
It is a combination of exploratory and descriptive, which means the purpose of this master thesis was to study, analyze and document the findings on social marketing as a discipline and its application in Slovenian nonprofit organizations.
Also, in this master thesis, it was analyzed what opportunities social marketing offers to nonprofit organizations in Slovenia. This was done on the case studies of two Slovenian nonprofit organizations, by analyzing their activities, beliefs and attitudes towards social marketing and comparing the findings.
1.2.2 Goals
The main goal of the theoretical part of the master thesis was to overview the existing literature, textbooks and research articles on nonprofit organizations and social marketing and its use in nonprofit organizations in Slovenia.
For the research, I used secondary data from the above-mentioned sources, as well as primary data, which were obtained by conducting in-depth interviews with employees of two nonprofits - ZPM Maribor and Sonček Maribor.
Based on this, the goals of the theoretical part were:
1. overview of the existing literature on the third sector and social marketing 2. to present and define terms: nonprofit organizations, marketing, social
marketing 3. to analyze findings on nonprofits and social marketing in research studies until
now 4. overview of the social marketing use in Slovenia 5. to analyze social marketing as an approach for managing social change.
The main goal of the empirical part of the thesis was to check the conceptual model I set up. With qualitative research, I tried to reach the following goals:
1. examine marketing activities in the two organizations and their use of social marketing
2. determine the awareness of marketing employees in these two organizations and their knowledge of social marketing
3. determine beliefs and attitudes of the nonprofits’ employees towards social marketing in general and social marketing campaigns as a means to influencing behaviors
4. check the hypotheses I have defined in the conceptual model, which are presented further in the following chapter.
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1.3 Research design and research model
1.3.1 Design and research model
Research design enabled me to explore, explain and describe social marketing.
As the sample depends on what we want to know, the purpose of the research and inquiry and what will be useful (Patton 2002, 244), my research strategy included two case studies - two Slovenian nonprofit organizations based in Maribor, both members of wider, national networks. The sample was chosen based on my personal judgment that employees in these organizations have extensive knowledge of the subject - nonprofit organizations and social marketing (Marshal and Rossman 1995, 41).
To be more concrete, I focused on their Maribor offices and their activities. My aim was to learn more about them and social marketing in general, weather they use marketing in their everyday activities and, if yes, what is their opinion on social marketing. To do this, I focused on management and marketing representatives of these organizations.
This master thesis is completed as a qualitative research. As a collection technique, I used in-depth interviewing. These interviews were conducted in Slovenian language.
To form research questions and hypotheses, I used the so-called “funnel approach”, meaning I defined social marketing as my focus and set the research questions. From these questions, I derived hypotheses.
1.3.2 Research Questions
In qualitative research, research questions come from researcher’s direct experience and growing scholarly interests (Marshal and Rossman 1995, 16). It was exactly my growing interest in the use of social marketing in nonprofit organizations and their regular activities that encouraged me to choose social marketing as the main focus of my master thesis. To form the research questions, I used “the conceptual funnel” (Marshal and Rossman 1995, 16)
Based on the literature review and an overview of the two nonprofits, I focused on the following research questions:
R1: Do nonprofits in Slovenia use social marketing in their activities? What do they think about social marketing in general?
R2: What are their beliefs and attitudes towards social marketing and campaigns in making social change and change in behaviors of their target groups?
R3: Are analyzed organizations aware of the advantages of social marketing for nonprofit sector and in terms of changing behaviors?
R4: How can analyzed organizations use social marketing in the future to improve their impact?
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1.4 Hypotheses
Social marketing means planning and implementing marketing programs designed to bring a social change. It seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and general society. It does not market the product itself, but influences a social behavior (Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 329).
It was my goal to establish whether ZPM and Sonček are familiar with social marketing, do they use marketing to bring a social change, and if yes, in what ways they see social marketing as a useful tool to achieving their goals.
To highlight once more, both organizations are nonprofit, focusing on children and aiming to create/change public opinion and culture which will promote diversity and acceptance of those who are different.
With in-depth interviews, I tested the following hypotheses:
− H1: Analyzed nonprofit organizations are familiar with the meaning of social
marketing
Even though the interest in social marketing is growing even out of the USA and UK (Andreasen 2002, 4), this term is relatively new in Slovenia. It has been just recently introduced, mostly to academia, and is used as „a synonym for non-profit marketing, societal marketing, social advertising, public issue campaigning, cause-related marketing, and even social public relations“ (Kamin 2011, 1657).
As there are not many papers and researches covering social marketing of nonprofits, especially in Slovenia, with this hypothesis I wanted to check if they are even aware of social marketing and the tools which are at their disposal.
− H2: Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in their activities to
promote behaviors which will contribute to communities
Many authors defined social marketing as a process which aims to influence behaviors that will improve various areas of life, including the contribution to communities (Kotler and Lee 2008, 7; Kotler, Lee & Rothschild 2006).
ZPM and Sonček cited different activities in their mission statements and goals, which contribute to communities, and this is why I wanted to check if they actually promote these activities by using marketing tools.
− H3: Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in order to achieve
an individual one-time behavior
− H4: Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in order to achieve
an individual continuing behavior
Social marketers are selling behaviors, which can influence target groups to accept a new behavior, reject undesirable behavior, modify a current or abandon an old undesirable one (Kotler and Lee 2008, 8).
Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 330) make distinction between one-time and continuing behavior change of individuals and groups.
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They also make distinction between low and high involvement behaviors. Example of such one-time community involvement behavior is donating money and of continuing behaviors volunteering, mentoring etc. (Kotler and Lee 2008, 144), which ZPM and Sonček aim to promote.
− H5: Management of analyzed nonprofit organizations believe social marketing
can lead to higher voluntary involvement of the community in their activities
Exchange is the central element of social marketing. Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 333) emphasize that these exchanges are “complex, personal and anticipatory”, as for every alternative, an individual is giving up on something else - is exchanging costs for benefits. Organizations benefit from these exchanges in form of support from their audiences and social marketing offers an alternative where there is not enough interest from the side of individuals to engage in certain behaviors (Rothschild in Lai et al. 2009, 987).
As there is a lack of research about social marketing, especially in Slovenia (Kamin 2011, 1659), I decided to learn if management in the two organizations believe social marketing can help them include more of their audiences in their activities through volunteering and mentoring, as forms of community involvement.
− H6: Management of analyzed nonprofit organizations believe the use of social
marketing can improve social impact of nonprofits in general and in terms of
changing behaviors
Andreasen (2002, 4) presented the barriers for growth of social marketing identified by the Social Marketing Institute (founded in 1999), where the first issue presented was the lack of appreciation of the discipline at the level of top management.
Analysis of more than 300 interviews showed that nonprofits’ managers are “unaware either of social marketing or of its potential for organizing and implementing major social change programs“ (Ibid., 4). There is no data on Slovenian managers’ beliefs on social marketing, so this hypothesis also aimed at contributing to this.
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1.5 Implementation of the research
Theoretical part was implemented as follows:
1. Searching for the literature and sources from the field:
− Libraries: University Library Maribor, Library at the Faculty of Economics and Business in Maribor
− Library Information Systems: COBISS (journals, articles, papers)
− Databases: Academia.edu, Emerald, Google Scholar, JSTOR, ProQuest, Web of Science. Keywords which will be used to search the databases for relevant articles: Marketing, Social Marketing, Nonprofit organizations, Nonprofits, Marketing in Nonprofits, Third sector, Behavior change
− Eurostat and Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia
2. Literature review
− based on the literature review, research problem was formed, as well as the research questions
− basic conceptual model was formed
− based on the conceptual model, I set the research questions and hypotheses
3. Designing the instruments for data collecting
− based on the theoretical findings, in-depth interviews were used.
The practical part was implemented through in-depth interviews. The interviews started with some theoretical and historical questions, such as about the organizations themselves, their activities, general knowledge about marketing and social marketing, if they use social marketing, how, why/why not and what do they use (Gerson and Horowitz 2002, 201).
1.6 Methods
Collecting and analyzing the data
Research data were collected by obtaining primary data through unstructured in-depth interviews. The process went as follows:
1. setting the protocol 2. constructing the interviews 3. implementing the interviews 4. transcription and validation 5. organizing the data, generating categories and main themes 6. testing hypotheses 7. writing the final report.
First, the interview protocol was prepared, which guided me through the interviews. As Boyce and Neale (2006, 4) suggest, guidelines on what to say when setting up, beginning and closing the interview, what to do during the interview, how to record the data and how to store them, should be included in the protocol. Also, it included
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an interview guide with the list of questions and issues to be covered with an interview (ibid., 4).
As suggested by Gerson and Horowitz (2002, 201), interviews started with a set of theoretical and historical questions about organizations themselves, social marketing in general and their understanding of the field.
In-depth interviews were also recorded, transcribed and shared with respondents for confirmation in order to avoid inaccuracies and recall errors (Kumar 2011, 278).
Writing down the interviews and quoting extensively allowed me to identify the main categories and themes - respondents’ thoughts on social marketing and its use in nonprofit organizations.
Generating the categories is the most difficult step and involves noting regularities, questioning the data and reflecting the conceptual frame (Marshall and Rossman 1995, 113).
Identification of the main themes was the next step of the content analysis, which will require going through the descriptive answers several times in order to become familiar with the respondent’s beliefs and the meanings of their answers. Organizing the data was done through several readings of interviews, during which I was able to take notes.
Answers were then classified under main themes, which allowed me to integrate these themes and responses into my final report. As suggested by Kumar (2011, 278), in the text report I used verbatim responses.
After the hypotheses were tested, I proceeded to presenting the data in form of text.
There are several models for writing reports. Marshall and Rossman (1995, 117) stated 5 different models by Taylor and Bogdan (1984, chapters 8-12), of which I chose a combination of presenting the data gathered through in-depth interviewing, where participant’s views form the structural framework of the report, and an approach which attempts to relate the practice to theory. This means the data was summarized and then linked to theoretical constructs (Ibid., 117).
As for the sample, it is very important to choose the right interlocutors. Based on my personal judgment and literature overview, it made the most sense to conduct these in-depth interviews with management and marketing representatives of the two organizations. They are familiar with and have extensive knowledge of nonprofits, marketing and, probably, of social marketing, which should give me an insight in these fields (Kumar 2011, 192).
The study was judged on two criteria, as suggested by Marshall and Rossman (1995). These criteria are informational adequacy and ethical considerations.
At the end, a comparative analysis of these two cases was made, as well as conclusion and some recommendations for both organizations.
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1.7 Ethics
This master thesis was prepared respecting the ethics and was entirely done by myself with the support from my mentor.
Participants in the research were presented with the purpose and goals of the research truthfully and were asked for their acceptance. They were acquainted with the duration, goals, results and the use of the research and results.
It was made clear that they can refuse to take part in the research and that their participation is voluntary. Participants were not asked any provocative questions or in any case put in an unfavorable situation.
1.8 Assumptions and limitations
During the research, these two organizations were working and developing their marketing and, possibly, social marketing activities. Also, it was assumed they are at least familiar with the term and they are using social marketing in their every day work. I believe that the information gathered from these two organizations might reflect the actual state of nonprofit organizations, as well as of social marketing in Maribor and wider area.
Also, it was assumed I will be able to reach the right people in these organizations to interview, as well as that they will participate in the research and give truthful answers.
I assumed that the research will lead to some new conclusions, new hypotheses to be tested and new ideas on the use of social marketing in nonprofit organizations in Slovenia, in particular the ones to be covered with the research.
Limitations which were assumed are mainly concerning the sample. The research focused on social marketing activities of only two Slovenian organizations, which is a really small percentage, compared to the total number of nonprofit organizations active in Slovenia.
Also, research focused on organization members of these two Slovene networks based in Maribor, which means it was not possible to generalize the results and apply them to all the organizations in Slovenia.
It is researcher’s challenge to make sure personal interest in the topic will not bias the study (Marshal and Rossman 1995, 17).
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2 MARKETING IN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
2.1 An introduction to marketing in the nonprofit sector
2.1.1 THE NONPROFIT SECTOR
“We live in an age of nonprofits” (Berry 2005, 568)
Sargeant (1999, 4) defined nonprofit organization as “one that exists to provide for the general betterment of society, through the marshalling of appropriate resources and/or the provision of physical goods and services. Such organizations do not exist to provide for personal profit or gain and do not, as a result, distribute profits or surpluses to shareholders or members. They may, however, employ staff and engage in revenue-generating activities designed to assist them in fulfilling their mission.”
These organizations play an important role in societies of today with the size of the sector different from country to country (Sargeant 1999, 7).
Salamon and Anheier (1992) suggest 5 factors of importance when explaining nonprofit sector of a country: heterogeneity, scope of the welfare state, level of development, legal framework and historical traditions (Sargeant 1999, 6).
This is why defining a nonprofit sector and nonprofit organization is not easy, as there are millions of organizations with different roles and goals, depending on their state laws, their environment, donors, shareholders etc. Besides, these organizations are facing the same, if not even bigger, challenges, as they coexist in the same space with profit-oriented organizations.
According to Sargeant (1999, 8), there has been “an explosion” in the number of nonprofit organizations, as a result of fast social, environmental and economic changes.
Also, Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 14) describe the nonprofit sector as “surprisingly large” with growth faster than the one of the private sector. They highlight there were over 1.6 million private nonprofit organizations and government entities in the US in 1998.
The size of the sector and number of employees with an estimate 15.8 billion hours of work in 1998, which is equivalent to 9.3 million employees and an estimated equivalent labor value of almost USD226 billion, make the sector of crucial importance for the US economy.
In other parts of the world, nonprofit sector also has a long tradition and importance and is growing even in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe and China. It actually has higher growth internationally than in the US, according to the study from 1995, as cited by Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 15).
The term nonprofit organization itself came from the American management theory and is very wide, covering everything from religious organizations to government entities.
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Usually, a nonprofit is born as an idea by a group of people who have a will to change a certain problem in society. These problems can vary, from ending poverty, self-help groups, providing food and shelter to those in need or providing scholarships for successful students. So the purpose and goals of nonprofits are different depending on the society problem they are focusing on.
Hansmann (1980) highlights that as the nonprofit sector developed, nonprofits have been operating in a wide range of public services, from health care, education and research, religion and charity work to arts and media (Cited by Erkoc 2011; Berry 2005, 569).
Drucker (1990, 33) explains: as long as there will be human race, there will be sick people who need help, there will be alcoholics and drug addicts who will need rehabilitation, there will always be students who will need support to go to school etc.
This is why nonprofits play an important role in our societies and are delivering services with an aim to change the society for the better:
“It (nonprofit organization) wants the end user to be a doer” (Drucker 1990, 39).
So it is not just the increasing number of nonprofits that is important. The variety of their work is also changing to almost every area of human interest.
Nonprofits made a long way since their first appearance in the form of self-organized groups of citizens to todays’ important players in development and policy making.
Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 11) explain the evolution of nonprofits through 4 stages.
At the beginning of twentieth century, people would gather and react on issues which were not addressed by their governments. This was the so-called voluntary/civic model and the first stage of nonprofit development. It meant activities such as helping the local fire department (Ibid., 11). Zimmerman (1994, 398) mentions the motive behind - altruism, as a quality innate to human.
Industrial revolution brought prosperity and wealth concentrated in the hands of the wealthiest families, who, out of different reasons, decided to give back to society. This was the philanthropic patronage stage from which mainly educational and cultural institutions benefited. Today’s large foundations are direct successors of this phase according to Dowies’ “American Foundations” (2001), as quoted by Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 11).
The following stage was directly influenced by the Great depression and the growth of government-funded social institutions. At that point, nonprofit model in America was based on rights and entitlements, meaning some groups claimed they were entitled to “at least some share of public taxation funds for their work, their institutions, or both” for serving the interests of society (Ibid., 11).
The competitive/market stage made it impossible for nonprofits to rely on the support by groups from earlier stages. As Andreasen and Kotler (Ibid., 11) emphasize, this support came from: individuals willing to help/share in the first phase, the generosity of the wealthy in the second phase and governmental funding in the third phase.
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Today, in the fourth phase, nonprofits are not strictly volunteer organizations. They employ staff and implement different programs for which they need financial means.
Being nonprofit does not mean these organizations do not engage in for-profit activities, it is just not their primary goal. As they do enroll in profitable activities, what differentiates them from for-profit organizations is the way they use the profits they gain.
Unlike for-profit organizations, nonprofits reinvest the profits they earn for support and development of their primary activities. What classifies them as nonprofits is their main mission, as well as the fact that their success in achieving goals is not measured by the profit they gain (Tihi 1999, 574).
The profit will not, at the end, be shared among shareholders, but reinvested in the activities of organization and used to provide means to reaching its’ goals (Ibid., 574). They do this in various ways. Theatres sell tickets, museums sell souvenirs, galleries sell reproductions of arts to their visitors or, as the Sonček association in Maribor does, sell second hand products to fundraise for their activities. As Berry (2005, 569) points out, it is perfectly legal for nonprofits to make profits, they are just not allowed to distribute it to shareholders.
Another criteria that separates profit from nonprofit organizations is their goal and the purpose for which they were set (Širca and Tavčar 1998, 3).
The world today is a constant observer of all the activities done by nonprofits - from humanitarian aid to Syria and Palestine, Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and medical aid in fighting ebola virus in West Africa to organizations trying to preserve nature, such as Green Peace, or prevent animal abuse, such as PETA.
There are also organizations such as European Forum Alpbach, New York Public Library and Teach for All, who have different mission and goals comparing to those charitable ones mentioned above.
Nevertheless, all of them act in the interest of society and this is where their social claim role comes from. Their employees, members and volunteers work against unfair situations and protect those less fortunate, which were usually affected or with problems caused by large international corporations and businesses or by private or public interests (Vernis et al. 2006, 6).
Nonprofits work for the general good and aim to provide services and goods crucial for wellbeing of their protégées and society. They have employees, but what really characterizes them is a large number of volunteers who are donating their money, time and knowledge and, by that, contribute to nonprofits’ goals.
What is also very important is to define environment of nonprofit organizations and who actually benefits from their activities. Just as every organization, nonprofits, too, have its internal and external environment. These environments change and between a nonprofit organization and its environment are relationships based on certain interests.
Societies today consist of three pillars: public administration, business corporations and nonprofits. These sectors cooperate in an ever-changing, fast-paced environment and nonprofits have to possess certain qualities and capabilities to continue improving
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lives of their target audience and society itself (Tihi 1999, 573; Širca and Tavčar 1998, 3; Vernis et al. 2006, 2).
Vernis et al. (2006, 2) cited De Vita and Fleming (2001), saying the sectors are also intertwined and their collaboration is marked with exchange of ideas, resources and responsibilities, with outside factors such as economic, demographic, political etc.
Širca and Tavčar (1998, 16) highlight the fact that each nonprofit organization is actually a system of different units, groups and individuals, which are components of its internal environment, where its internal participants are.
Nonprofits have management, employees and volunteers who contribute to their goals. On the other hand, its external participants can be divided as:
− those providing resources, like financial, material, work, knowledge and other;
− those giving legitimacy, like respectability, adequacy, justification etc;
− users, who are enjoying benefits and services of nonprofit organization;
− competitors, such as other nonprofit and for-profit organizations and all other groups and individuals who are applying for the same funds and
− collaborators, which are all other organizations who connect with the organization aiming to reach the same goals (Ibid., 16).
They also quote Mintzberg (1983, 32-46) who named owners - founders, partners and competitors, technical and professional organizations and politics and public administration, as external participants of importance (Širca and Tavčar 1998, 17).
It is sometimes hard to distinguish different nonprofits from one another. Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 20) mention legal form of nonprofit organizations, as an important classification dimension and write about benefits as outcome of having a legally registered nonprofit, such as tax exemption.
According to Salamon (1999, 8) there are 27 types or nonprofit organizations defined in the IRS - Internal Revenue Service (Cited by Berry 2005, 569). It is very hard to define which organizations actually go into the group of nonprofits and in which of the 27 types, especially as their profit is not an indicator of success and for the fact that the scope of their activities is very wide. There are labor unions, humanitarian organizations, hospitals, theatres, churches, faculties and schools and many, many more.
Sargeant (1999, 4) mentions a system for international comparison - ICNPO (International Classification of Non Profit organizations), with nonprofits divided into 12 groups according to their main focus - e.g.
− Culture and recreation,
− Social services,
− Education and research etc.
Badelt (1997, 107-109) classifies nonprofits as:
− administration (state, county, municipality): numerous organizations with scientific, artistic, social goals etc;
− nonprofits close to business, such as associations of manufacturers, and
− “real” nonprofits, usually young organizations growing from idealistic groups, such as political associations, cultural societies etc. (Cited by Širca and Tavčar 1998, 5).
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But, never minding their classification, mainly what puts nonprofits in the same group is their mission and the obvious “nonprofit” part in their name. As Peter Drucker (1990, 33) said, nonprofits exist to make a difference in society and in a life of individual, they exist to fulfill their mission. And this is why they are important.
2.1.2 MARKETING IN NONPROFITS
“Nonprofit marketing has finally come of age” (Sargeant 1999, Preface)
Nonprofits came a long way since they first appeared and are today using management techniques and marketing approach in reaching their goals. With an increasing number of nonprofits, competitive market phase made it harder for nonprofits to find funding for their work. This is how marketing finally found its way into the nonprofit area.
Today, the word marketing is used often by almost everyone - from marketing directors to customers, from advertisers to those who mistake it for advertising, from sales personnel to those who are very loud in their thoughts on marketing as a tool which makes people spend more and use the things they do not actually need (Smith and Saker 1992, 1).
Marketing stretches across the organization’s business - from its website and the way employees are dressed all the way to design of product and services, the way organization markets them and the way it takes feedback from its customers. This is exactly why Regis McKenna (1991, 10) said: “That is why marketing is everyone’s job, why marketing is everything and everything is marketing”. Even though most would probably agree with this statement, there is still a need to define it as a discipline.
According to an AMA - American Marketing Association definition, marketing is „the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large.“ (AMA, 2013).
Kotler defined marketing as „the analysis, planning, implementation and control of carefully formulated programs designed to bring about voluntary exchanges of values with target markets for the purpose of achieving organizational objectives” (Cited by Wilbur 2000). He also offers another definition of marketing, as the process in which companies create value for their customers and build relationships, so they capture value from them in return (Kotler 2008, 7).
Marketing is a philosophy, a management approach that puts customers in the center of organizational activities, but it is also a function, which focuses on creation of products and services, starting from its design, to its delivery and pricing. Unfortunately, marketing is usually seen as 4P only - focusing on product, price, place and promotion, which is just a part of what marketing offers an organization (Sargeant 1999, 9-10). It should be accepted as a management philosophy which goes through all the departments and levels within an organization placing customer in the center of everything organization does (ibid., 9-10).
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Most of definitions of marketing start with its concern for identification and satisfaction of organizations’ customers and, as the entire concept starts with needs and wishes of customers, it is also what nonprofit organizations are aware of.
At first, marketing in general was not accepted in nonprofit organizations. It was considered “a dirty word”, equal to sales, which meant inappropriate in the nonprofit world and nonprofits were soon left way behind for-profit organizations in terms of business trends ( Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 6-7; Wilbur 2000, 55-56). But, as Wilbur (Ibid., 55-56) explains, users of nonprofit services were losing their satisfaction over nonprofit services and they were starting to show this dissatisfaction. This was the main reason nonprofits decided to change the way they relate to their markets, although it took them almost 10 years to accept marketing as an orientation.
So, even though the word marketing was forbidden in the nonprofit world, marketing finally found its way to actual implementation of nonprofits’ ideas, mostly thanks to articles published by Kotler, Zaltman, Levy and Shapiro in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s (Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 7). According to Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 7), most of the articles back then actually argued that marketing is a persuasive activity which generally goes way beyond regular sales of fast-moving-customer-goods, such as toothpaste or soap. Marketing concepts and tools were first adopted in areas such as education, health care, arts, recreation, but also in product sales, such as in the contraceptive social marketing. In the late ’80s marketing was used by governmental agencies and all other activities for which money was not exchanged (Ibid., 7).
Today, marketing is an important part of strategies of nonprofits, such as colleges, hospitals, museums, political parties etc. (Kotler 2008, 32). Many nonprofits are using “for-profit” techniques in order to become more competitive. As they are facing many challenges, nonprofits today use marketing just as for-profit organizations in their everyday activities, although they have different values and different goals. They also have different target groups and groups of interest. This is why it is crucial for them to organize their fundraising activities in order to fulfill their mission and reach their goals.
Even though some nonprofits may view marketing as a business activity, Kotler and Levy believe that marketing plays a very important role in the lives of nonprofit organizations (Kotler 1979, 38). Sargeant (1999, 17) mentions four benefits of marketing in nonprofits:
− marketing can improve the satisfaction level of customers
− marketing can assist a nonprofit in attracting finances and other resources to support its work
− a professional marketing approach can help to define what distinguishes the organization from others, what is its added value and its main competencies
− it can help setting a working framework, such as objectives and the way to reach them.
He also quotes Kotler and Levy who highlighted the fact that every organization, for-profit or nonprofit, has its customers. This is the key notion to marketing managers of nonprofit organizations who plan activities according to their customers needs (Sargeant 1999, 15-16).
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In for-profit organizations, the role of marketing is to satisfy the needs and wishes of their customers through the value exchange - product or service for money. Buyer will buy a product or a service under certain conditions and price set by an organization, if he believes the benefits exceed the price he pays. This cost - benefit relation is even more difficult to define in nonprofit organizations, where there is no direct comparison of the economic benefit and economic loss, as it is much harder to define what nonprofits offer and what they expect from their customers. Sometimes it is very hard to “persuade” customers that some behavior change will bring them benefits, which will be greater than the costs (Tihi 1999, 576).
In for-profit organizations, products and services are clearly defined. When it comes to nonprofits, they can also offer a certain product (a medicine, publications etc.) or services (education, medical assistance etc.) to their customers or an opportunity to actively support organizations’ goals, which makes them feel good in a psychological way (Ibid., 578). In case of nonprofits, costs cannot be compensated with price, especially as customers decide on costs in a lot wider sense than just for the money they pay. It is clear that marketing managers in nonprofits have a very difficult and complex task when it comes to pricing strategies.
In terms of promotion, there is no major difference between nonprofits and for-profit organizations. The nonprofit promotional mix consists of advertising, direct marketing, public relations and sales promotion.
The role of distribution in nonprofits marketing mix comes down to connecting suppliers with users at the same place and at the same time (Ibid., 579-560).
All the previously mentioned specific characteristics of nonprofits are not the only ones, but they bring to conclusion that application of marketing in nonprofit organizations is not an easy task. However, it can be extremely successful, especially when marketing managers respect all the characteristics of nonprofits and their special goals and mission.
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2.2 Social marketing
“We focus on behaviors” (Kotler and Lee 2008, 8)
Kotler and Zaltman (1971, 3) introduced social marketing concept to marketing discipline in their article “Social Marketing: An approach to planned social change”. They stated that the application of marketing logic to social goals is a natural development (Cited by Sargeant 1999, 259; McKay-Nesbitt and DeMoranville 2012, 52). As Sargeant (1999, 259) explains, they realized the same marketing tools and techniques used on products and services could be applied to marketing of ideas, too.
Social marketing was labeled as a distinct marketing discipline in the early ‘70s focusing primarily to influence those behaviors which aimed to “improve health, prevent injuries, protect the environment or contribute to communities” (Kotler and Lee 2008, 7).
Authors emphasize the ultimate goal of any form of marketing is to influence a behavior (Sargeant 1999, 259; Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 5; McKay-Nesbitt and DeMoranville 2012, 52-53) and as Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 328) point out, social marketing proved itself as a very successful approach to changing problematic social behaviors in the twenty-first century. It was definitely not a new idea when it was introduced by Kotler and Zaltman back in the ‘70s. Kotler and Lee (2008, 11) mention efforts to free slaves, abolish child labor or influence women’s voting rights as some examples of campaigning for voluntary change of behavior.
The term social marketing itself is often misunderstood and many mistake it for communication, social advertising, social propaganda, education etc. (Andreasen 1995, 3; Sargeant 1999, 259-260; Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 328; Domegan 2008, 136; Kotler and Lee 2008, 3), especially in the light of social media marketing, it’s phenomenal growth in the last years and an obvious confusion regarding the “social” in the name of the discipline (Wood 2012, 94). At first, the term social marketing was described as “the use of marketing principles and techniques to advance a social cause, idea or behavior” (Kotler and Zaltman 1971, 11).
Kotler and Zaltman (1971, 11) gave an early definition of social marketing as: “the design, implementation and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution and marketing research” (Kotler and Zaltman 1971, 5 cited by Sargeant 1999, 259; Wood 2012, 95). On the other hand, Lefebvre (2011, 55) highlights that contemporary definitions (Andreasen, 1994, 110; Andreasen, 1995; Donovan and Henley, 2003; Kotler and Lee, 2008, 7) describe it actually as a method to influence voluntary behavior of target audiences.
Kotler et al. (2006) also emphasize its impact on behaviors, defining social marketing as “a process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit society (public health, safety, the environment and communities), as well as the target audience” (Cited by Kotler and Lee 2008, 7).
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According to Kotler and Lee (2008), social marketing focuses on how marketers can change consumer behaviors to benefit individuals and/or society (Cited by McKay-Nesbitt and DeMoranville 2012, 53).
There are several key differences between social and commercial marketing. The emphasis of previously mentioned definitions is clearly on influencing consumer behavior which benefits individuals or wider society and what distinguishes social from other types of marketing are the objectives of those using it (Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 329; Kotler and Lee 2008, 8; Wood 2011, 96). Sargeant (1999, 260) also starts with objectives, stating the fact that generic marketing usually benefits the organization, as a result of marketing activity. It is different in case of social marketing, where marketing activities are aimed at society and behavior change in that society.
Both Sargeant (Ibid., 260) and Kotler and Lee (2008, 11) raise a question of what exactly is beneficial and what is considered as good. They also make an example of abortion, which is often debated from different stands, which are all considered as “good” by their advocates (Ibid., 11). Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 329) go even further, stating that “sound marketing approaches and techniques” can be used easily by anyone, such as Hitler and Mother Theresa.
Social marketing “sells” a desired behavior and its primary aim is societal gain, unlike financial profit in commercial sector. This also influences the choice of target market, as in social marketing segments are selected on different basis and different criteria (Kotler and Lee 2008, 13).
As for competitors, in case of commercial marketing, main competitors are those offering similar goods or services, while in case of social marketing, competition can often be current or preferred behavior and all the benefits that come with it. Simply put, competition is the behavior which social marketers want to change, as well as all organizations that sell or promote this kind of behavior. Good example is tobacco industry and social marketing campaigns aiming smokers to give up an addictive behavior (Ibid., 13).
Domegan (2008, 137) points out that voluntary behavioral change is in the very core of social marketing. As social marketers focus on behavior, they usually want target markets to: accept a new behavior, reject a potentially undesirable behavior, modify a current one or abandon an old, undesirable one (Kotler and Lee 2008, 8).
Influencing people is not an easy task, especially when it is required of them to completely change their ways regarding issues that are important for them, such as giving blood (to be uncomfortable), buying recycled paper (spend more money), giving up their free time (to volunteer) or an addictive behavior (stop smoking) (Kotler and Lee 2008, 13).
Social marketers have to make sure individuals will want to change their behavior and actually manage to change it. Here, they have to be aware of the fact that certain behaviors are very easy and some very hard to change. It mostly depends on whether the change itself requires low or high involvement, if it is individual or group and if it is a one-time or continuing behavior change. So the changes social marketing aims to create can be: low or high involvement, individual or group behaviors and one-time or continuing behaviors (Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 330-331). An example of individual
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low involvement one-time behavior is donating money to charity, while individual high involvement one-time behavior might be giving blood. Low involvement group continuing behavior is like driving on the right side of the street, while high involvement individual continuing behavior is practicing family planning etc. (Sargeant 1999, 262-264; Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 330-333; Kotler and Lee 2008, 8-13).
Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 340-341) highlight four problems social marketers have to address in order to achieve these changes:
− the value-change problem - new behavior must be seen as socially desirable (“for people like us”)
− the motivation problem - new behavior must be personally desirable (“for our family”)
− the education problem - new behavior must be understood and
− the behavior modification problem - it has to be practiced.
Beside these problems, social marketing can be highly effective. There are numerous campaigns mentioned by Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 343), Kotler and Lee (2008, 4-7), Sargeant (1999, 268-270) etc. to prove this. This effectiveness comes from applying marketing techniques, which are used to sell products or services. Marketing mix or 4Ps is one of these techniques, focusing on product, price, place and promotion, adjusted to social marketing, as it focuses on customer and its behavior (Tian and Borges 2012, 102-105)
Tian and Borges (Ibid.; 103-104) explain that in social marketing product is not necessarily a physical product (such as medicines). It can be a service or an intangible idea, such as “don’t drink and drive”. Sargeant (1999, 270) mentions the element of persuasion as important, as the change in behavior has to be presented through the benefits as an outcome of certain behavior change. The product, for example, can be change in recycling behavior.
In case of price, it is connected to what customer trades in order to get the promised benefit. This cost can be monetary, but usually it is something customer has to give up, like time, effort or some other activity to reach the benefit, like smoking. It can also be social, because sometimes, individuals can suffer some embarrassment when responding to social campaign (Ibid., 270; Pečak 2004, 44).
For tangible products, there is always a distribution channel. When it comes to social marketing, place as a part of marketing mix usually refers to communication channel, through which a program can be communicated. In this case, these can be doctor’s offices, shopping malls, mass media or simple posters (Sargeant 1999, 271; Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 341-342; Tian and Borges 2012, 103). On the other hand, referring to distribution, Pečak (2004, 44) emphasize the importance of accessibility of social products.
Just as in case of commercial marketing, promotion is the most dynamic part of social marketing mix. Social marketers use different promotion tools, such as advertising, public relations, promotions, word of mouth, media advocacy, personal selling and entertainment vehicles. It also includes books and articles, displays, special events, endorsements, brochures etc. (Sargeant 1999, 271; Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 409; Tian and Borges 2012, 103).
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Sargeant (1999, 271) also adds two other “P’s” - Partnerships and Policy. According to him, many nonprofits involved in social marketing engage in partnerships, as certain behaviors are not easy to influence and they do not have enough resources to encourage change on their own. As for the policy, sometimes continuing behaviors have to be forced upon individuals and groups in form of laws and policies. An example of this is when government bans smoking inside or advertising of tobacco products, in order to reduce sales or number of smokers (Ibid.,271).
Social marketing can be done by anyone, starting from individuals and informal groups, public sector agencies, foundations, nonprofit and for-profit organizations (Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 329; McKay-Nesbitt and DeMoranville 2012, 53).
Social marketing professionals usually have very unique responsibilities. In their efforts to reach organizations’ goals, social marketers face certain problems which are not characteristic for for-profit organizations. Here are some of them:
− social marketers face special attention and control by the public. The state, media, donors and others are watching their every action carefully, as it goes for a behavior which is of interest for everyone;
− social behavior which is expected from the target segment very often has an invisible benefits or benefits to third parties only - such as in the case of speed limitations, which benefits the society, but can be considered as a restriction by a person undertaking the behavior;
− social marketers are often asked to influence a negative demand. Many of social behaviors which are expected by the target groups are not acceptable for them, as they see it as a restriction of their freedom, e.g. wearing seat belt, saving electricity, recycling etc.;
− they are often asked to influence a nonexistent demand, as many of behaviors they are trying to influence are new to the target audience, such as in case of belief that children come “naturally” or as part of God’s plan, in which case it is important to teach families that family can be planned and that children are not inevitable;
− the focus is on the changes in the long term, because of the nature of social behavior and the way it can change, as it sometimes requires drastic changes of attitudes, education, delicate problems etc.;
− they often target illiterate audiences, mainly in developing countries, where population often has limited reading/writing skills, making it harder to social marketers to create the right campaign to influence a behavior;
− behaviors often include intangibles difficult to portray, which makes it hard to actually show these intangibles in promotional messages;
− behavioral change itself can involve rewards - marketers often hold on to promises made by their target audience, while it is the consumers’ own actions which will ultimately generate the benefits etc.
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− they often work with highly limited budgets and work with those who are very suspicious of marketing etc. (Andreasen 1997, 5-6; Tihi 1999, 585; Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 337).
As social marketing influences human behavior and for the fact that it can be used by almost anyone, the domain of its potential applications is very broad. According to Andreasen (2002, 3), the most important development in the growth phase of social marketing is its distinction from marketing of products involved in social change, such as contraceptives, to its broader use in different areas.
Kotler and Lee (2008, 16-23) mention 50 major social issues which could benefit from social marketing activities. Even though the list is incomplete, they highlighted four major areas which social marketing usually focuses on:
− health promotion,
− injury prevention,
− environmental protection and
− community involvement.
Kotler and Lee (2008, 18-21) mention some of health-related behaviors to impact: tobacco use, HIV/AIDS, skin cancer, diabetes, blood pressure, eating disorders etc. Among injury-related behaviors to impact are: drinking and driving, seatbelts, suicide, school violence, household poisons etc. Environmental behaviors which could be influenced are: waste reduction, water conservation, forest destruction, energy conservation, watershed protection etc. Among community involvement behaviors to impact, they proposed: organ and blood donation, voting, animal adoption, literacy etc.
They also wrote about other ways beside social marketing which could impact social issues, such as education, media, technology, science, improved infrastructures and built environments etc. (Ibid., 18-21).
Even though Andreasen (1995, 3; 2002, 3) emphasized that there is a risk of social marketing not fulfilling its full potential, as there is a lack of understanding of the term and the field, later he also highlighted the fact that the field was broadly accepted, as there are several textbooks by Andreasen, Kotler etc., the Social Marketing Institute, Social Marketing Journal etc. According to Andreasen (2002, 3), social marketing is in its growth stage of its product life cycle, while Smith (1997, 21) believes that very interesting future awaits social marketing. He also points out the fact it is the “social” in social marketing that is under attack, highlighting not the question of why use social marketing in order to help people, but why help people at all (Ibid., 21).
Smith also writes about three continuing problems. These are: too much advertising, focusing too much on focus groups as the primary research technique in social marketing, as well as too little science in sales, programs and publications (Ibid., 23).
Andreasen (1997, 6) adds that changes in behavior are, in many cases, only the first step and many programs are short-lived making social marketing campaign only a quick fix of a problem. Later, he also (2002, 4) mentions other barriers for social marketing growth, according to research done at the Social Marketing Institute, which was founded in 1991: lack of appreciation of social marketing on management levels, poor brand positioning of the field, lack of academic structure and inadequate
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documentation and publicity of success. The solution to this is to brand social marketing in the marketplace of social change approaches (Ibid., 5).
In their marketing dialogue at the end of the first chapter of “Social marketing: Influencing behaviors for good”, Kotler and Lee (2008, 25) advise expert marketers from commercial marketing should be “encouraged to join us” - to specialize in the exciting field of social marketing. It is a force which is doing good in ways beyond filling people’s homes and lives with new products and services with, certainly, good future prospects.
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2.3 Nonprofits and social marketing in Slovenia
2.3.1 THE THIRD SECTOR IN SLOVENIA
“..the third sector in Slovenia is still very much an ambiguous sector..” (Črnak-Meglič 2004, 249)
Slovenia is a small European country and a part of the European Union since 2004. With population of little over 2million in 2012, it is located in southern Central Europe and is surrounded by Austria, Croatia, Italy and Hungary, with 46,6km long coast line at the Adriatic Sea between Italy and Croatia (www.europa.eu, 2015).
According to the data at the Europa.eu website, the most important sectors in Slovenia in 2012 were industry (25.2 %), wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation and food services (20.4 %) and public administration, defense, education, human health and social work activities (17.8 %) (Ibid.).
As for the third sector, there are over 22.000 third sector organizations in Slovenia, putting it among the countries with highest share of third sector organizations compared to the number of inhabitants (Črnak-Meglič and Rakar 2009, 240). On the other hand, Kržišnik (2012, 2) points out that in Slovenia, there are over 1million people brought together non-governmental organizations. She also mentions only 0.82% of all employees is employed in non-governmental sector, which puts Slovenia way behind other European states.
According to data provided by the Statistical office of the Republic of Slovenia and the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services, there were 21.460 organizations, 209 foundations, 428 cooperatives, 1744 independent institutes and 1172 religious organizations. Adding the number of chambers of commerce, political parties and unions, the number of civil-society organizations in Slovenia reaches the number of 28.647 in 2008/2009 (Kržišnik 2012, 3).
Here, it is also important to make a difference between nongovernmental sector mentioned by Kržišnik and defined in the analyses of the sector in Central Slovenia and nonprofit sector defined in the first chapter of this thesis.
A nongovernmental organization is a society, association or institution, which does not serve personal individual or business goals of its founders. It is not dependent on the state, political parties or business subjects (Babič, Kržišnik & Bajc 2012, 5). Rončević (2002, 48) reminds that in the US there are two terms in use: nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations. Besides these, there are also other terms, such as voluntary organizations, nongovernmental development agencies etc. According to him (2001, 23), the term third sector is in use describing all organizations which are neither profit-oriented nor governmental agencies nor bureaucracies (Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 2). Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš (2011, 2) point out that there is no legal definition of the term non-profit-voluntary organizations, to which they refer as the third sector.
From this, it is clear that the third sector defined by Slovenian authors and in use in Slovenia is a much wider field than the field of nongovernmental organizations alone. For this reason, I will continue using the term third sector, as proposed by authors.
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Development
According to Črnak-Meglič and Rakar (2009, 238) Slovenia has a long tradition of self-organization and people’s interest associations. After the Second World War, development of third sector in Slovenia was marked by four stages:
− the period of state socialism - the main characteristic of this period was decreased number of third sector organizations from the time between two World wars to “only 6,761“ in 1975 (Kolarič et al. 2002);
− the period of self-governing socialism in the late ’70s - this period was marked by decentralization and weakening of the state control over the work of associations;
− the period of new social movements in the 1980s - according to Črnak-Meglič and Rakar, ‘80s were the years of third sector development in Slovenia and start of numerous social movements in areas such as peace, environment, subcultures etc. At this time, these organizations also started working more independently and became a part of civil society;
− The period of transition after 1990 - while the majority transferred to political parties in the ‘90s, only small number of third sector employees actually stayed in civil society organizations. This was also the time when new laws were adopted to regulate activities of third sector organizations (Ibid., 238-240).
According to Kamin (2011, 1649-1650), in the previous political system, the state provided public institutional support in every area, from education to transport, for which it was perceived as responsible for the welfare and well-being of the society. After the fall of Socialist Federal Republic Yugoslavia, Slovenia faced numerous challenges, including those in the relationship between the state and its citizens, as well as problems regarding the nature of this relationship. The transition in terms of politics and economy brought new challenges in field of social change management (2011, 1649). Kolarič et al. (2009, 227) mention three important processes which characterize the transition of ex-socialist societies to democratic capitalist societies. These are:
− privatization and liberalization;
− market deregulation including the labor market and
− withdrawal of the state from providing the third sector with financial and other resources, which actually had a really positive effect on civil society, voluntary and nongovernmental organizations, (Ibid., 227)
Črnak-Meglič and Rakar (2011, 242-243) argue that 50 years of state-socialist type of welfare system, before the political system was actually changed, can explain the main characteristics of the third sector in Slovenia. They presented employment, structure of the sector and revenues as the most significant indicators of the third sector in Slovenia.
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Employment
Employment is one of the most significant indicators of the characteristics of third sector, as well as its growth. The number of employees in the third sector in Slovenia is less than 1% (Črnak-Meglič and Rakar 20009, 241; Kržišnik 2012, 2). Rončević (2009, 57) compares this percentage to 7% of US employees working in the nonprofit-volunteer sector and an average of 3% in other countries.
Even though the number of Slovenian third sector employees is growing, it is still at low level of professionalization with different structure of employment, according to the type of organization (Črnak-Meglič and Rakar 2009, 241). Also, a large majority of 80.6% of the third sector organizations in Slovenia have no employees at all, while the biggest number of employees is in the field of sports and fire brigades (Ibid., 241).
They also emphasize the fact that organizations in social services have 26.7% of all employed in the sector, although their share in the third sector structure is only 3.6%, which probably means they have the most professionalized structure (Ibid., 241).
Črnak-Meglič (2000, 149) notes that the reason for low employment rate in Slovenian third sector would be absence of means for implementation of their activities, as stated in the National Report on Slovenian third sector (cited by Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 10).
Another important thing is the voluntary work in Slovenian third sector organizations. Črnak-Meglič (2009, 242) emphasize that volunteer work converted to number of hours performed by full-time employees is equivalent to 0.91% of total employment. This means volunteers are a significant substitute for full-time employees, performing 26% more work than those employed in the sector.
Structure
As for the structure of Slovenian third sector, the great majority of these organizations is from the field of sports and recreation, culture and arts or firemen’s associations, representing probably half or one third of the total number of organizations (Črnak-Meglič and Rakar 2009, 242; Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 8). According to the data provided by the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services, 35.8% organizations in Slovenian third sector were sport and recreation associations, 15.1% arts and culture, 13.4% associations for helping people, 9.4% were associations for education, science and research etc. (Kržišnik 2012, 5).
According to Črnak-Meglič and Rakar (2009, 242), there is far less organizations active in the field of healthcare, social services and education.
Rončević (2002, 63) points out the fact that majority of these organization exist primarily to satisfy the needs of their members, while for the public good work 87% of total number of nongovernmental organizations and 81% of total number of foundations. But, this is only 5% of the total number of all nongovernmental organization.
This structure of the third sector in Slovenia, which did not change much over the years is actually a direct consequence of the specific welfare system structure which was formed during the socialism period when the state took care of almost all public needs (Ibid., 242).
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Finances
Financial resources of third sector organizations are another indicator of the sector’s significance, as well as of the relationship of the state toward the sector.
When it comes to finances and revenues of third sector organizations in Slovenia, the data is very incomplete (Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 10). Rončević (2002, 63) names resources, especially financial, as the biggest problem Slovenian third sector organizations are facing. Črnak-Meglič and Rakar (2009, 244-245) analyzed the structure of third sector organizations revenues, which showed the most important resources are local government sources, followed by membership fees and private business donations.
Rončević (2002, 58) highlights that in developed countries of European Union and Israel dominant types of organizations are social and educational ones, which are highly supported by the state and less by private donations. The other group or states Rončević mentions are the neoliberal states, such as USA, UK, Australia etc. with smaller part of state finances and more of the finances from the organization’s commercial activities (Ibid., 59).
In case of Slovenia, financial means mostly come from:
− the state in form of subventions, concessions etc. (As stated in the National report on third sector, only 16% of organizations do not acquire state subventions, while the income acquired by the state is crucial resource for only 30% of organizations),
− membership fees,
− private businesses in form of donations and sponsorships and
− organizations’ own commercial activities (Rončević 2002, 64; Črnak-Meglič and Rakar 2009, 245; Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 10).
Anyhow, according to Črnak-Meglič (2000), the access to financial means provided by the state through e.g. lottery (as one part of lottery earnings is automatically given to humanitarian organizations) for these organizations is selectively limited and the current system supports the destabilizations of third sector in Slovenia (cited by Hvalič, Ramovš & Ramovš 2011, 10).
Cooperation with the state
In the National report on third sector, Hvalič, Ramovš and Ramovš (2011, 12) point out the fact that the state does not consider third sector as a serious partner in meeting the needs of people or as an important contributor to the general social welfare (Kolarič, 1994, 19 in: Črnak-Meglič, 2000, 161). Črnak-Meglič (2009, 252) believes the formation of partnership between third sector organizations and the state as an equal partners is still a distant goal. According to her, the biggest obstacles for this process are: “the fragmented and non-cooperative third sector, the absence of a politically strong and integrated civil society and the absence of mechanisms and channels in the political system for the indirect incorporation of third sector organizations’ representatives and the articulation of civil society’s interests“ (Ibid., 252). However, authors agree this should be improved (Kolarič 1994, 19; Črnak-Meglič 2000, 161).
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As a general conclusion on the Slovenian third sector, Črnak-Meglič (2009, 249) refers to the results of John Hopkins research which shows that over the period of ten years, between 1997 and 2007, Slovenian third sector was growing intensively, without developing at the same time. This means an increase in all types of organizations, with one important notion – that all other indicators of the third sector development stayed practically the same.
Based on this findings and the level of the sector’s professionalization, measured by the earlier above-mentioned number of professional third sector employees, we can conclude that Slovenia has one of the least developed third sectors, compared to other post-social countries (Ibid., 245-246).
2.3.2 SOCIAL MARKETING IN SLOVENIA
“Good social marketing practice needs people that understand the principles of social marketing..” (Kamin 2011, 1657)
Political and social transition brought new challenges for Slovenia in terms of social change management (Kamin 2011, 1649).
Claim of independence in 1991 made crucial changes for Slovenia, as the role of the state in the previous system was to take care of everything, of individuals and almost all areas of life: education, health, science, housing, transport etc.
Society changes were, at first, managed institutionally on structural and community level, with the state trying to feed people with information on what to do and how to do it. According to Kamin (Ibid., 1649), new political and economic changes and a decreasing state welfare were the main reasons for questioning the nature of relations between the state and its citizens. This refers to the roles and responsibilities of both sides. In the light of new political and economic circumstances, as well as technology development, the state presented new concept of free choice, transferring to individuals the responsibilities for their own well-being.
As Kamin emphasizes, the state did not become indifferent to its citizen, but simply started addressing them as individuals who are free to choose for themselves. The “new” state, as well as the “old” one, also has in mind the wealth of its citizens (Ibid., 1649). She also highlights the paternalistic relationship between the state and its citizens, as the most important legacy influencing the social change management and the development of social marketing in Slovenia, questioning the degree of “unease in deciding how many rights and responsibilities the state should have, and how much freedom in rights and responsibilities the individual should have” (Ibid., 1651). As an example of this dilemma, Kamin mentions the recent non-smoking law which aimed at protecting non-smokers, but concurrently denying smokers from smoking in public indoor places.
Kamin also quotes Rothschild (1999), who suggests there are three primary types of strategic tools to manage social issues behavior: education, marketing and legislation (Ibid., 1652).
In theory and in practice, social marketing has a short history in Slovenia. And just as in the case of the term “marketing”, there are a lot of misunderstandings regarding the
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term “social marketing” in Slovenia, too. Demšar Pečak (2004, 32) points out the fact that in Slovenia many usually identify social, societal and nonprofit marketing (socialni, družbeni and neprofitni). This is why she emphasizes that marketing of social problems, deals with social issues, such as family planning, traffic safety, fighting alcohol and drug addiction, as well as promoting the healthier life-style, fighting AIDS and improving ecology awareness etc., should be named social marketing (Ibid., 32). Jančič (1996) also argues that nonprofit marketing, usually mistaken for social marketing, is actually a way of managing organizations that exist to address the needs of society, such as hospitals, universities, foundations, political parties etc. (Cited by Demšar Pečak 2004, 32). On the other hand, social marketing has been acknowledged in Slovenia as a concept and in practice, through organization of full academic courses at universities, several theses related to social marketing in the past 10 years, as well as numerous trainings and conferences, especially for public health professionals and so on (Kamin 2011, 1658).
According to Kamin, there are several barriers for social marketing growth. Here, she emphasizes the term marketing, which has a negative connotation is Slovenia, as well as the use of social marketing terminology being really confusing. She agrees with Peattie and Peattie (2003), who argue that some terms, such as product, price, place and promotion, should be used only within commercial marketing. On the other hand, social marketing programs address citizens, individuals, communities etc. and, as she points out, social marketing mix actually consists of people, behavior, costs, structural opportunities etc. (Ibid., 1658).
Among other things, as barriers to social marketing growth in Slovenia, she also mentions the legal approach and the earlier above-mentioned paternalistic approach to managing social issues behavior in Slovenia. Also, social marketing practitioners emphasize only social advertising skills which decrease the understanding of social marketing in the first place. Other important problems are “poorly designed social marketing campaigns”, leading to individualization of social problems.
Related to this, Kamin believes the most critical barrier for social marketing growth in Slovenia is actually the lack of proper research as the basis for social marketing projects (Ibid., 1658-1660).
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3 EMPIRICAL PART
3.1 Research methodology
The main purpose of this thesis is to learn more about social marketing, as it is rather new and the current literature in this field is limited.
As suggested by Patton (2002, 213), it will be a basic research, contributing to the existing body of knowledge, especially regarding social marketing in Slovenia and its use in practice by nonprofit organizations in Slovenia, more precisely Maribor. The basic purpose here is to explain and understand social marketing.
Further, as literature suggests, this research will be a combination of exploratory and descriptive. The purpose of this thesis is, on one hand, exploratory, as it investigates a little understood field of social marketing, and descriptive, on the other, as I will document the findings on this, relatively new, field of social marketing.
As a research strategy, I will use case studies of two Slovenian nonprofit organizations, by analyzing their activities, beliefs and attitudes towards social marketing and comparing the findings (Marshall and Rossman 1995, 42). To learn about them, I will use their online presentations and literature, especially their own issues made for their anniversaries and for their own collection. I will compare these two organizations regarding their mission, vision, principles, target audiences, main goals, their activities and projects, especially those directed to the acceptance of their target audience in the community.
There is a possibility they are unaware of marketing, so the analysis will show if they apply marketing techniques in their work, with special focus on social marketing, as a way to achieve change in social behaviors, especially that of the entire community regarding their protégées - youth, families, and those with cerebral palsy.
As a data collection technique, I will use in-depth interviewing, with the employees of these two sample organizations. Patton explains the informal conversational interview is the most open-ended approach in interviewing (2002, 342). This is also known as unstructured interview, which will be used to collect data in this thesis, too. Unstructured interviews will allow me a certain freedom during the interview regarding the content and questions. As highlighted by Kumar (2011, 160-162), it will require a face-to-face contact with informants, enabling me to understand their perspective as expressed through their own words.
Data in qualitative research is not collected through strict sets of determined questions, but are raising issues around enquiry area, so, as a research tool, I will use an interview protocol with a loose list of questions previously prepared. I will use open-ended questions and avoid asking yes/no questions.
With case studies and interviews, I will be able to get answers to research questions highlighted in the research proposal:
− R1: Do nonprofits in Slovenia use social marketing in their activities? What do they think about social marketing in general?
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− R2: What are their beliefs and attitudes towards social marketing and campaigns in making social change and change in behaviors of their target groups?
− R3: Are analyzed organizations aware of the advantages of social marketing for nonprofit sector and in terms of changing behaviors?
− R4: How can analyzed organizations use social marketing in the future to improve their impact?
Answering these questions, I will also be able to analyze what opportunities social marketing offers to the two chosen nonprofit organizations in Slovenia.
An overview of the research literature enabled me an insight in social marketing as a discipline, as well as to see how helpful it can be in changing behaviors. This thesis focuses on the two Slovenian organizations based in Maribor described in the following chapter Case Studies. Both of them are parts of larger Slovenian networks, have long tradition and enjoy certain respect in the community for their activities and contribution to the development of the community.
For successful interviews, it is important to choose the right people to talk to, to choose those familiar with the organization they represent and with the topic of the interview. As Patton explains, in case of studying people, programs, organizations or communities, the population of interest for the researcher can be fairly readily predetermined (2002, 238). Qualitative research typically focuses on relatively small samples, even single persons, who are selected purposefully. The logic of purposive sampling is in selection of the information-rich cases (Ibid., 230). For this thesis, I will have non-probability purposive sample, also known as selective or subjective sampling, as the sample will be chosen based on my best judgment on potential respondents’ relevance for the research.
I will get in touch with organizations this thesis addresses and try to get their marketing representatives to take part in interviews. Since the topic is very specific, concrete persons will be contacted and presented with the information sheet, explaining the purpose of the thesis, the interview and possible application of the findings. As suggested by Paton (2002, 341), this will enable me to enter the perspective of nonprofit organization workers when it comes to use of social marketing knowledge, principles and activities.
Regarding in-depth interviewing, Kumar (2011, 244) also reminds of the importance of ethics while interviewing. Therefore, I will obtain respondent’s informed consent.
An informed consent procedure will be prepared with respect to the following criteria: participants to be competent to give a consent, sufficient information from my side must be presented in order the potential respondent can make an informed, reasonable decision and his/hers consent must be voluntary and unforced (Ibid., 244).
As sharing content of interview or some information without respondent’s approval, is unethical, I will make sure they are familiar with the purpose of the thesis and its potential use. As the respondents cannot be identified as a source of the collected information, I will make sure of the maintained confidentiality.
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I will also use an appropriate methodology, report the findings in a correct and unbiased way and avoid misuse or an inappropriate use of information or in a way it might harm the respondents in the interviews in any way.
Data processing depends on how we wish to communicate the findings (Kumar 2011, 277). In qualitative research, editing is not appropriate, so to avoid recall mistakes or misunderstandings and to ensure transparency, after the interviews are completed, they will be transcribed and sent to respondents for verification.
The content of interviews will be analyzed in order to identify the main themes emerging from the responses by going through the materials. I will identify the main themes emerging from the recordings, transcription of interviews and notes and write about them, quoting extensively in verbatim form. This will enable me to actually understand the meanings the respondents wished to communicate. All the responses will be classified under the main themes and integrated in the report. As my sample will be relatively small and in order to keep the authenticity, I will quote responses in the report.
The data will be presented in form of text, as the findings should be presented in a way they are understandable and should provide extensive and comprehensive information on the main theme of the thesis. As suggested by Kumar (2011, 292), the writing will be thematic - written around various themes arising from the interviews.
In the final report, the data gathered will be presented in narrative format written around the main themes and will form a structural framework connecting the practical findings to theory.
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3.2 Case studies
3.2.1 FRIENDS OF YOUTH ASSOCIATION MARIBOR
“What counts more than providing better days for children?” (ZPMS president Darja Groznik 2013, Preface of “60 years of friendship”)
Friends of Youth Association Maribor (Zveza prijateljev mladine ZPM Maribor) is an independent, voluntary, nongovernmental, nonprofit and humanitarian association of societies, involving organizations of the Friends of Youth (DPM - Društvo prijateljev mladine - Friends of Youth Association) from Maribor and other neighboring municipalities. It was founded on 26 November 1990, even though the first Friends of Youth society in Maribor was founded back in the 1951.
Together with over 100 associations and societies all over Slovenia, ZPM Maribor is a part of the Friends of Youth Association Slovenia (Zveza prijateljev mladine Slovenia - ZPMS). It also shares its main mission and vision. Ever since it was founded back in 1953, the main mission of ZPMS stayed the same:
“to raise the quality of life of children, youth and families, to advocate their
interests and protect their rights” (Sanchez 2013, 70).
Official vision of ZPMS valid until 2015 is stated in the proceedings issued on 60 anniversary of the Association and is as follows:
“ZPMS will be the voice of children and youth, to contribute and shape an
environment and public opinion which will be friendly towards children, youth
and family. It will become an indispensable interlocutor to the state when it
comes to preparation and acceptance of system solutions contributing to
children, youth and their families“ (2013, 61).
The number of ZPM Maribor societies was changing during the years, reaching its peak in 1968, when 36 societies were registered in Maribor region. These societies are the foundation of ZPM Maribor and today, it consists of 5 societies:
1. DPM Občine Starše - active since 1978 2. DPM Miklavž na Dravskem Polju 3. DPM Tezno 4. DPM Pernica - all three active since 1990 5. DPM Maribor - founded in 1996 and is today the most active member of ZPM
Maribor (Mikić 2013, 55).
Some of the main principles of ZPM Maribor are to ensure equal opportunities for children and youth, voluntary work, promoting patience and acceptance of others.
According to Association’s current president Saša Mikić (2013, 5), in 60 years of its existence, ZPM Maribor witnessed the beginning of a new state, as well as a social system change. Organization’s history was always linked to taking care of children, youth and families, protecting their rights, enabling them an active and creative time and raising the quality of life. All of this was possible thanks to ZPM Maribor and its volunteers, who are a true value of this organization (Ibid., 5).
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Mikić points out the fact that many families face social crisis and unpleasant reality every day, making ZPM Maribor’s target audience - children, youth and families, the most vulnerable group today. This is why ZPM Maribor warns about problems of children, trying to get society pay more attention to children and youth and their problems and needs (Ibid., 6).
In times of social, economic and recession, ZPM Maribor showed its knowledge and strength. Mikić emphasizes the fact that ZPM Maribor proved itself as an organization which is capable of representing the interests of children and youth, as it was its mission from the very beginning (Mikić 2013, 52).
In 10 years, Mikić sees ZPM Maribor as an organization which is perceived by children and youth as a safe, caring, interesting and creative friend. He sums up their vision, stating that ZPM Maribor will be recognizable as an organization that cares for creative development of youth, answering all the questions that are of interest for youth all over Europe. With their volunteers and experts, it will provide children and youth with equal opportunities, emphasizing the importance of creativity (Ibid., 54).
Basic principles of ZPM Maribor coincide with those of the ZPMS and are as follows:
− creating equal opportunities for availability and inclusion of children, youth and families in their programs,
− respecting the life values of children, youth and families
− voluntary work
− non-profitability
− tolerance toward those who are different
− openness of work and integration and cooperation with other nonprofit, voluntary organizations
− work unrelated to political parties.
Their projects are numerous: The ninth land, The flying bus, Youth for progress of Maribor, Holidays with friends, Holidays in VIRC and DMZ and The reading badge, which was founded in 1960/1961.
ZPM Maribor also has several facilities for implementation of their programs. These are:
− DUM (Dom ustvarjalnosti mladih Maribor - House of Creativity of Youth in Maribor, Slovenia) - the place where most of free-time and creativity activities for children and youth take place. Here are also the offices and multiple rooms used by other organizations and associations for their lectures, workshops, dance, sports and other activities.
− VIRC Poreč (Vzgojno izobraževalni in rekreacijski center Poreč, Educational and recreation Center in Poreč, Croatia) - summer resort house on the Croatian coast with a capacity for more than 300 children.
− DMZ on Pohorje (Dom Miloša Zidanška na Pohorju - House of Miloš Zidanšek in Pohorje, near Maribor, Slovenia) - a winter and summer resort house on the Pohorje mountain, which gives shelter to 75 children.
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As emphasized by Tadeja Dobaj (2013, 80), voluntary work is a foundation of ZPM Maribor work. It is their most important principle and today, in these 5 member organizations, over 800 volunteers take part in different activities of ZPM Maribor each year. These people work for the benefit of children and youth, they are kind, hard-working and dedicated people, ready to learn and improve their skills.
By volunteering for ZPM Maribor, they perform over 60 thousand hours of voluntary work each year. According to tariffs stated in the Slovenian Law on voluntarism, this means ZPM Maribor with its volunteers contributes around 600 thousand EUR of added value to the community. The biggest number of volunteers is engaged in summer camps, around 200, while TOM telephone is covered by 25 volunteers. Their volunteer program is organized and managed by rules and procedures, special summer camp volunteering commissions, trainings etc.
Another special part of ZPM Maribor story are their charity activities. Ever since it was founded, employees and volunteers participated in humanitarian activities directed towards children with health and social problems, such as collecting food for school kitchens, clothes, shoes etc. for children from Haloze (Dobaj 80-81, 127).
Numerous projects, numerous activities, changed lives of children and youth, as well as of their volunteers, are only some of the reasons that the members of ZPM Maribor are very proud of their 60 years of existence.
3.2.2 CEREBRAL PALSY SOCIETY SONČEK MARIBOR
“We want the society to get accustomed to having these children around” (Večer, 2012)
Maribor society for cerebral palsy Sonček (Mariborsko društvo za cerebralno paralizo
Sonček) is a society for children, youth and adults with cerebral palsy and related diseases, their parents, relatives, friends, supporters. Sonček Maribor is a voluntary, humanitarian, nonprofit organization for people with disabilities, which aims to help children, youth and adults with cerebral palsy and related disabilities and to support their social inclusion. It is a member of Sonček Association of Slovenia, which connects another 15 regional societies for cerebral palsy.
On their official website, they explain the need for networking of this kind, as an easier way to reach common goals, to harmonize opinions and standpoints, share common education opportunities and to form and to better organize the services they offer.
Sonček Maribor was founded in 1982 aiming to provide an effective and well-organized medical and other expert assistance, as well as protection of children with cerebral palsy.
In 1994, a center for protection and work was founded in Maribor. The main purpose of this center was to include adults with cerebral palsy, who cannot get employment under regular employment terms. In this same year, Maribor also got its specialized living spaces, adjusted to the needs of persons with disabilities. This was the beginning of Sonček center Maribor, which connects the company for vocational trainings and employment of persons with disabilities Sončna pot, founded in 1991, with protection and work center, specialized apartments and the society itself.
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Goals of Sonček Maribor are:
− implementation of activities and programs which will benefit their members
− organization of educational and cultural programs, recreation activities, rehabilitation, free time activities.
Sonček Maribor shares the vision of the Association, which is:
“to create culture and environment, which will accept the differences in physical
and intellectual abilities without prejudice”.
Their mission is to implement the right to independent life of individuals and commitment for equal opportunities regardless of one’s physical or intellectual abilities.
Their activities are numerous. They organize cooking courses, foreign language courses, subscriptions for cinema and theater, theater group etc. For their youngest members, they also organize and co-finance swimming, skiing and other programs, as well as a school in nature for pupils of elementary school Gustav Šilih.
What is also important to point out is the success of the program for inclusion of children with cerebral palsy in regular schools, which was implemented on the Association level (www.soncek-maribor.si, 2015).
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3.3 The interviews
The sample in this thesis is a predetermined non-probability purposive sample.
The case-studies chosen for the research, Cerebral Palsy Society Sonček Maribor and Friends of Youth Association Maribor (ZPM Maribor), were chosen based on social marketing literature review and my personal interest in the work of these organizations.
Interview respondents were chosen based on their involvement in the organizations and they were contacted through their official email addresses of their organizations, as their personal are not available on the websites. This initial approach did not give results in either one, so the emails were repeated for another two times. Prior to sending, I didn't know who will actually receive these emails, so the email included rather general information on myself, the thesis and the interviews. My emails were received by the coordinator of social inclusion projects in Sonček Maribor and the manager of summer camps in ZPM Maribor. Through them, I was introduced to Sonček president and ZPM general secretary.
Interview respondents were presented with myself, the thesis and with the topic in short via email and, later, by phone. They received an Information sheet, containing description of the thesis and its purpose, as well as an interview in short.
Due to strict obligations and the fact that the two interview respondents are the most relevant persons in their organizations to discuss the question important for the thesis, interviews were completed only with them. Although it was initially planned, they were not asked to recommend other employees for interviews, as they are the main persons in-charge of management or marketing activities in their organizations and were supposed to be familiar with the interview topic.
Interviews were organized according to participants’ availability and in organizations’ offices.
Once more, prior to the interviews, both participants were explained the purpose of the research and of interviewing, interviewing process and revision of information. They were also asked for consent to use recording device and to make notes prior to the interview.
Also, an interview guide was prepared, listing questions and issues to be explored during the interview and providing topics and subject areas for an interviewer to explore, probe and ask questions (Patton 2002, 343). It also included scenario for opening and closing of the interview and some basic ground rules for the interviews.
The interview guide includes the following topics:
− Information about the organization
− Respondent’s background
− Organization’s activities and projects
− Organization’s surroundings and community
− Marketing and social marketing
− Community involvement behaviors to impact
− Social marketing possibilities
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Interviews will be explained in detail in the following chapter. The entire list of preliminary questions and the interview guide is available in the Annex.
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4 TESTING THE HYPOTHESES - PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS AND EVALUATION
4.1 Qualitative analysis and interpretation
Basic research aims primarily at contribution of the research to social science theory (Patton 2002, 434). According to Marshall and Rossman (1995, 111), data analysis is the process of bringing order, structure and meaning to collected data. In qualitative research, we look for general statements about the researched phenomena.
Literature review, hypotheses and case studies from the previous chapter were used for interview analysis. Besides interview analysis, it also included a cross-comparison of these organizations’ past events and challenges, structure, mission, vision, goals, PR activities etc. As suggested by Marshall and Rossman (1995, 112-113), the analysis was completed after establishing critical categories and defining relationships between them.
Analytic procedures are implemented in the following order:
− organization of the collected data,
− generating the themes and categories,
− testing the hypotheses.
Qualitative analysis transforms data into findings. The challenge of qualitative analysis lies in the, usually, huge amounts of data, which has to be reduced by dividing trivia from useful data, looking for significant categories and constructing a framework for a report, which will include the main essence and significance of the data.
The interviews were first re-listened several times and written in verbatim format. Since there were only two, the interviews were analyzed “traditionally, which is without software” (Patton 2002, 463).
The themes were already prepared in the interview protocol, so the classification of categories later was easier. The verbatim transcripts were re-read several times. In search for common terms, the shorthand comments were written directly on the relevant passages, as suggested by Patton (2002, Ibid.).
Notes and highlights were made in different colors and were used later as indexed copies for hypotheses analysis. With the main themes and categories, hypotheses were challenged and, in final, confirmed or rejected with reflecting on the conceptual framework and literature review.
The report covered the data gathered in in-depth interviews and is presented together with participants’ worldviews and opinions through the “impressionist tale” - chronological order of the research and fieldwork events.
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4.1.1 THE INTERVIEWS
The interview questions were prepared beforehand and organized in the following themes:
A. organization’s background B. marketing and social marketing C. community involvement behaviors to impact D. individual behaviors to impact E. potential use of social marketing in the organization
Questions were updated and adjusted in the course of interviews. Interviews started with some rather general questions about respondents themselves and their organizations, aiming to get to know how involved they are in their organizations and activities targeted at their members.
After several readings, the following categories were made:
A: organization’s background
Prior to interviews, all the available materials, such as Sonček Almanac and ZPM Yearbook were analyzed for better understanding of organizations, as well as to make as much use of the interviews as possible.
In the course of interviews, the following categories emerged:
A.1. individual involvement of people who founded both organizations as a response to an actual society problem at the time;
A.2. personal motivation of individuals who work and volunteer for these organizations is what keeps them motivated to participate in activities which benefit the society and help achieve organizations’ goals;
A.3. cooperation and networking with other organizations with similar goals and target groups to achieve goals;
A.4. motivation to raise awareness of the community about persons with disabilities and of issues that youth faces, but also to promote and achieve equal rights for all;
A.5. awareness of organization’s role in the society, which refers to their awareness of their role in the society and in changing community behavior;
A.6. actual impact on the society - practical examples of actions in which they managed to make a certain change in order to create an impact and societal gain.
B and E - marketing and social marketing:
In order to understand their actions better, respondents were asked questions regarding marketing and social marketing, as well as of public relations. They also made their own predictions and comments on the potential use of marketing and potential gains. Therefore, the following categories emerged:
B.1. awareness of social marketing - respondents did not show knowledge regarding the social marketing, but they did prove they understand the importance of marketing activities in general and of its impact on their activities;
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B.2. the role of marketing in their activities - they also emphasized campaigns and promotional activities which they prepare in order to achieve better visibility and achieve their goals;
B.3. potential use of (social) marketing - both respondents discussed potential benefits of using (social) marketing and public relations in their activities.
C: community involvement behaviors to impact:
Social marketing refers primarily to the use of marketing principles and techniques to influence behaviors and achieve a change which will benefit the society and target audience. As it focuses on behaviors, social marketing is used to make an impact on social issues (Kotler and Lee 2008, 7).
The interview preparation foresaw questions about organizations’ social influence, their perception of their role in the society and of social impact they actually have, as well as of ways to involve community in reaching their goals.
Both respondents highlighted volunteering, inclusion and acceptance of those with
different abilities and social background as the main community involvement behaviors to impact by their organizations. Among their ultimate goals is also raising awareness of the community about youth issues, especially of those with lesser financial opportunities, and those with disabilities.
Kotler and Lee (Ibid. 22-23) also write about other downstream and upstream ways to influence individual and community behaviors. They agree that “we have been placing too much of the burden for improving the status of social issues on individual behavior change and that the marketers should direct some of their efforts to influence upstream factors”. They also quote Andreasen who believes the same principles can be used to influence politicians, media figures, community activists and all those who can act in order to bring a long-lasting positive change in the society (Ibid. 22-23).
Andreasen further notes that some changes might be easier if social marketers moved their attention upstream to community leaders, companies, policy makers etc. so all those who might actually make the difference. This has also shown in the interviews as accurate, as both ZPM and Sonček are very active in creating and pushing social issues to policy makers by participating in certain working groups, making proposals on laws regarding their target groups etc.
Based on this and the literature review (Kotler and Lee, 2008, and Andreasen and Kotler, 2003), some of these behaviors and principles emerged from the interview analysis as the main categories, which can be seen as follows:
DOWNSTREAM influence:
C.1. media: promotion in online and printed media, social networks, word-of-mouth;
C.2. education: informal education of children and volunteers through summer and winter holidays and camps during the year by using the method of inclusion.
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UPSTREAM influence:
C.3. social policy: attending city councils, working groups for new laws, participating in preparation of new laws, networking and cooperation with other NGOs in regards to social policies etc.;
C.4. improved infrastructure and built environments: examples of potential cooperation between Sonček and companies, as well as the Municipality and other state institutions, in order to make architectural and infrastructure adjustments and make the city more comfortable for people with disabilities and enable their free movement.
All these categories are actually ways for these two organizations to reach their ultimate social goal: to raise awareness of the community about persons with disabilities and of children with fewer opportunities and children and youth in general, and, in the end, achieve equal rights for all.
D: Individual behaviors to impact
Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 330-332) make the distinction between low and high involvement behaviors. Individual, as well as group behaviors, can also be one-time and continuing. The behavior change is typically voluntary, but it usually involves some kind of benefit, a reward, at least in the form of satisfaction for providing help.
As already mentioned, the interviews showed both organizations were founded by community members, by people who wanted to give their contribution to solving a certain problem in the society. In case of Sonček, these were the parents of children with disabilities, while in the case of ZPM, those were the people who wanted to help children, the orphans of the Second World War. They were all rewarded by the feeling of doing something good for the general benefit of the society.
The interview themes and questions on individual behavior were made based on distinctions between different social behaviors. Two types of individual behavior questioned in the interviews were donating money to charity, as one-time, and volunteering, as continuing behaviors.
One-time behavior changes assume comprehension and a specific action based on the comprehension. This action means a certain cost to the actors, such as money, time, effort etc, even though this action can be favorable (Andreasen and Kotler 2003, 331). In case of giving money to charity, it refers to spending more money for a good cause and supporting something which a certain group or society in general benefits from (Kotler and Lee 2008, 13-14).
Achieving continuing is a lot harder than achieving one-time behavior change. In case of volunteering, this means giving up leisure time to volunteer or learning a new skills, such as leading a group of children, with some or all of them being with disabilities (Ibid., 13-14).
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Interview analysis, backed up by literature findings, highlighted following categories:
D.1. donations by individuals - usually one-time behavior in both organizations;
D.2. donations by companies - as a result of efforts of companies to be perceived as socially responsible, as explained by both interview respondents;
D.3. volunteers - numerous young people who devote their time to volunteer and participate in camps during the entire year. They are also affected by both organizations’ application of inclusion, as a way to achieve awareness of different problems of their target groups;
D.4. motivation behind these actions - as explained in the previous points.
Based on these themes and categories, the hypotheses were challenged and explained in the following chapter.
4.1.2 TESTING HYPOTHESES
AWARENESS OF SOCIAL MARKETING
H1: Analyzed nonprofit organizations are familiar with the meaning of social
marketing
Literature review showed social marketing is a relatively new field and in Slovenia the term is relatively unknown, especially regarding its use in purposes other than behavior changes related to health issues.
Prior to the interviews, it was assumed the respondents may not be familiar with the term at all or at least not with the theory of social marketing. This assumption turned out to be justified and correct.
“Personally, I am not familiar with the term social marketing, at least not in the
context described”, ZPM respondent says.
On the other hand, Sonček respondent has heard the term, but is not familiar with its meaning in any way:
“I haven’t really studied it, but I am familiar with it (the term). It is, of course,
connected to this social sector”.
Both respondents continued the answer in the direction of general marketing and promotion, making comments about their promotional activities, which clearly shows the lack of knowledge on social marketing. However, the interviews proved the other assumption, of a possibility that they actually apply the concept and principles of social marketing and use them in everyday activities and projects of their organization while addressing their target audience, partially correct.
Social marketing implies the use of “marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit the society as well as target audience” (Kotler and Lee 2008, 7). Neither of organizations has marketing department or a person in charge of marketing or, at
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least, public relations due to the lack of finances, although they are aware of its potential and an importance of a department or of a position like this.
“No, unfortunately, no... I am also a volunteer I do not have a salary... to have a
regular PR person, that would be hard... we don’t have money to have someone
engaged specially for this”, says the Sonček respondent.
What they do is planning programs and ad hoc promotional activities in order to change behaviors of the local community towards their members - people with disabilities and children and youth, which is a social marketing goal.
In both organizations, they are very aware that they are making an impact on society through their programs and that they influence their target groups, volunteers and the local community by using the method of inclusion in regular activities and projects. As the ZPM respondent says, their “programs are very wide” and it is how they achieve behavior changes towards the youth and towards persons with disabilities.
In addition, in both cases, organizations were founded by community members, who aimed at changing a certain problem in the society. It was their personal motivation and personal experience that actually ignited the idea of a common approach to more complex problems the society and certain groups were facing in certain period of time, especially in the cases where the state still didn’t have an appropriate response. As typical for social marketing, the marketers, in this case, these organizations, will not have any financial benefit (Ibid., 7), which also goes along with the social marketing idea and is setting the direction where these organizations are headed.
Social marketing is still rather unknown and usually misunderstood by many. (Ibid., 3). Literature review revealed most of articles on social marketing in Slovenia and the world are those about health related behaviors. Also, the interviews actually proved that respondents are not familiar with social marketing, although the organizations work for and actually do achieve certain behavior changes which benefit their target groups and the society.
In conclusion, we can say the analyzed organizations are not really familiar with social marketing, although one respondent knows of it and the other hasn’t even heard of it. We can also conclude that the general knowledge on the use of social marketing in nonprofit organizations in Slovenia is rather low even though they do achieve goals which can be evened with social marketing goals.
Everything stated above actually confirms the respondents are not familiar with the
social marketing term, therefore the hypothesis
H1: “Analyzed nonprofit organizations are familiar with the meaning of social
marketing” is REJECTED.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT BEHAVIORS TO IMPACT
H2: Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in their activities to
promote behaviors which will contribute to communities
As suggested by the research questions and hypotheses, besides the respondents’ awareness of social marketing, they were asked about the activities they use to promote behaviors that contribute to their community.
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Kotler and Lee (2008, 138) remind that social marketing campaigns assume very specific behaviors the marketers want to influence. This refers to influencing audience to accept, modify, abandon or reject. They also write about 3 different types of objectives associated with social marketing. These are behavior, knowledge and belief objectives.
BEHAVIOR OBJECTIVE:
A social marketing campaign always has a behavior objective, meaning it always aims at presenting something an audience needs to know about. The first criteria on choosing the right objective is its potential impact - will an audience’s behavior change be meaningful (Ibid., 139). As examples of potential behavior objectives in the area of community involvement, meaning objectives which will contribute to community well-being, Kotler and Lee (Ibid., 144) mention mentoring and volunteering.
Both organizations mention voluntary work as a very important and one of their main goals. They engage volunteers in their activities and by doing so, they actually achieve a higher social goal - raised awareness on the needs of their target groups and spreading of their main idea.
ZPM Maribor promotes voluntary work as one of their basic principles. Their official Proceedings mention over 200 volunteers every summer, as well as production of 60.000 hours of volunteer work, or in financial indicators - 600.000 EUR of added value in the local community. Their volunteer program is also regulated by rules and procedures and includes preparatory meetings and trainings.
“There are also mentors - volunteers, who help us during the year in regards to
holidays, which last for 2 months or so...”, says ZPM respondent.
Further, ZPM respondent elaborates the process of including volunteers in their work:
“Well, first, we promote ourselves through the idea, through.. let’s say, a
positive word-of-mouth, which enables people to perceive us as a good, right
partner which they would give their free time to and with whom they would use
their time and energy to create something positive for children and youth”.
ZPM respondent further explains:
“...then we have a term where these people get together and we teach them
about us, what we do and then we start with the story called training. This is
when our volunteers actually get involved in practical work and take part in our
activities. Then they personally become advocates of our idea..”.
So, by promoting their goals and ideas through downstream ways: word-of-mouth and social and printed media, they engage volunteers who actually spread their ideas further.
On the other hand, by using the method of inclusion, they achieve that their volunteers learn first-hand about children and persons with disabilities. This inclusion doesn’t refer only to the children, but also targets their volunteers:
“...those who come to our colonies and they get in touch, it is their first contact
with people with disabilities in many cases”, Sonček respondent explains.
This is how they also achieve belief objectives, which will be further explained.
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BELIEF OBJECTIVE:
The cross-comparison showed both organizations have similar goals in terms of raising awareness of the community about people with disabilities, in case of Sonček, and of people with disabilities and youth, especially the youth with fewer opportunities, in case of ZPM.
According to Kotler and Lee (2008, 143), beliefs objectives refer to attitudes, opinions, feelings and values held by the target audience. The target audience may have certain belief that the marketer wants to change or the belief may be missing. In the case of Sonček and ZPM, this is the community’s awareness of people with disabilities, on one side, and youth, on the other.
Both respondents highlighted the importance of social influence for their organizations, the importance of raising awareness and of changing public attitudes and behaviors of the community towards their target groups.
“I think it is our tradition is setting of certain social initiatives to impact the
society”, ZPM respondent confirms.
Tolerance towards those who are different is included in the mission statements of both organizations and the interviews showed both organizations, as already mentioned, use different methods to influence upstream and downstream factors.
By using these methods, they achieve their social goals, such as in the case of the Association Sonček Maribor, which is committed to creating a public opinion and culture that will be tolerant towards those who are different and to promotion of social inclusion.
ZPM respondent explains:
“Outwards, we make an impact by raising awareness. Because, if you have a
blind girl on the trip to Pohorje and where every root is actually on her way and
you have 50 other children around her, plus another 10 volunteers, for
example.. it means, we are raising awareness among them”.
The methods to influence downstream factors include media promotion and inclusion, as an educational method, to achieve that. Their activities are directed to promotion and realization of equal opportunities regardless of one’s physical or intellectual abilities. They achieve this by using the following methods:
1. Media
Sonček respondent confirms:
“...it is a huge emphasis on that (raising awareness).. so, to raise awareness of
the community and general public in different ways, through different channels,
such as media, social networks, by being present etc. .. We have our activities,
regular projects, which we promote in media. We try to get published in
magazines.. and we try to get out there and be physically present in the
society”.
Also, while explaining how they attract volunteers, ZPM respondent highlights the importance of word-of-mouth for their image, but also adds:
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“This is only one way, a very simple idea how to do it which also doesn’t reach
everyone who might be interested. This is why we use other more “modern”
techniques, such as public calls for volunteers, shared through our website,
social media channels, especially Facebook, calls in newspaper, street
promotion, street stands..”.
2. Education through inclusion
Both respondents highlighted the importance of inclusion for raising awareness of the people with disabilities and of the children and youth during the interviews.
ZPM Maribor aims at creation of equal opportunities, as well as tolerance and respect for all children, youth and their families. Among their goals is also a reduction of exclusion of children and youth, as they are, according to Mikić (2013, 6), the most vulnerable group today.
The previous example was further elaborated by ZPM respondent:
“They all spontaneously take care of her... This means not only helping a blind
girl walk over the roots or something like that, but we all also get something
from it. We get to know the differences, about people with disabilities. We
accept our differences and those who are different from us, we understand we
are all different in a way, special, but still equal and with equal rights. This way
we change our society and, somehow, the world itself”.
He further explains:
“We always have children with disabilities, blind or deaf children, children with
behavioral disorders, children with learning disabilities etc”.
By stating all this, he actually proves that ZPM uses all these tools to achieve a behavioral change, to influence the community, confirming the hypothesis.
On the other side, Sonček also advocates equal rights and use the same inclusion method and confirms the hypothesis. Besides the inclusion among volunteers, which was mentioned earlier, Sonček respondent says:
“The Association has a program of holidays in our center in Kungota, Vrtiče, and
what is important there is that in this center half of the children and young
people are those with special needs and the other half is those with no
disabilities. This is called inclusion”.
According to her, the inclusion method also refers to “being present in the society”. She made several examples of inclusion:
“Today, we will go to a concert in Maribor theater, which will also be attended
by the people in wheelchairs.. We also have spaces in the city center with a
purpose of fundraising and we try to be out there”.
By “being out there”, Sonček respondent further elaborates on their charity shop:
“So, basically, we collect funds, but we are also visible”.
Later on, she explains that people with disabilities also work in this shop, which is almost never the case in more developed countries.
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Referring to charity workshops in England and goodwill and thrift shops in Los Angeles, she says:
“People with disabilities do not work in these kinds of shops”
and further elaborates their decision to open a shop in Maribor:
“It was important for us to get people with disabilities involved, to have our
place in the center of the city, to be present in this way, too.
Continuing to explain the inclusion method, she says:
“If we would have all the children together, they would learn from the early age
that we are all the same”.
Their great achievement regarding this is an inclusion of children with cerebral palsy in regular schools (www.soncek-maribor.si, 2015).
“What we did in this direction is a “One school for all” project. This is something
the entire Association highly supports from day to day”, she says.
She also mentions examples from UK and US.
“They actually united a school for children with disabilities and regular school
into one building through the ‘Building the schools for the future’ project”.
Upstream factors which the organizations can influence refer to politicians, media figures, community activists, law officers and judges, foundation officials and other individuals whose actions are needed to bring about widespread, long-lasting positive social change” (Kotler and Lee 2008, 23).
3. Social policy
According to Kotler and Lee (Ibid., 17), policy making is yet another way to impact social issues. As foreseen, the interviews showed high engagement of both ZPM and Sonček in activities which aim at influencing upstream factors with social policy being one of the ways.
Sonček respondent confirms their engagement in different activities:
“There are also other activities, such as round tables, also some meetings with
experts, the Association has an expert council, through which we want to make
an impact”.
She further explains:
“Association Sonček is continuously included in this kind of working groups. Very
often, we do not agree with experts.. We are now involved in the group to push
the law on equal rights of persons with disabilities, but the law was not passed
yet. It would definitely address numerous problems”.
They are also very well aware of the importance of inclusion and the fact that the state has a role to play too:
“As I said, from the early age (referring to inclusion), like ‘One school for all’..
and not just by us, but also by the ministries. This means, ministries, the state
should be included”.
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ZPM respondent also highlighted the importance of influencing the policies:
“We need to influence the policies or a policy. Never mind is it the local or
national level, for an idea or a goal, we try hard and it is important to us to try
and implement our ideas in all the levels”.
He also mentions the importance of cooperation and networking with similar organizations in terms of social policies:
“..we certainly connect with similar organizations, such as Red Cross or Karitas.
So, when we know that a policy is to be decided on, we certainly know we have
to connect.. or we are a part of coalition, so to speak. All those who think the
same have to connect with the ministries, different commissions, different
boards or groups in the parliament, if we consider the national level”.
Their upstream influence is also directed towards the Municipality of Maribor:
“..we connect with the Municipality, local institutes, also the university, if
needed, and then also with the boards who work with the city council and,
indirectly, with city council groups”.
Both organizations actually share the same goal of promoting and achieving the same equal rights for all, as well as promotion of voluntary work and cooperation with other nonprofit organizations.
4. Improved infrastructure and built environments
Upstream factors are influenced not only through social policy but, in the case of Sonček, their actions are also directed to change in infrastructure and built environments.
Although ZPM does not influence and does not create actions regarding the infrastructure and built environment, probably for the simple reason that their target groups are not affect by it, Sonček mentions this as an important way of influencing the social issues. They are assuring the inclusion of people with disabilities to all areas of life and nondiscrimination in terms of social environment and in terms of architecture.
To the question about the physical environment and how adjusted it is to the needs of persons with disabilities, Sonček respondent says:
“We don’t see it, but if we could imagine how it is to be in a wheelchair, we
would soon see it is not easy. So, if someone would sit in a wheelchair and try to
get around, soon he would realize that he can approach only 20-30% of the
space, the other parts no”.
This problem again points out to upstream factors, namely the municipality and other institutions. She further explains:
“The most incredible information is that e.g. Municipality didn’t have an
elevator 3 years ago, so you couldn’t go to the second floor if you needed
something while you were in a wheelchair. Now there is an elevator”.
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“Although there are opportunities to make these architectural adjustments to
make everything more comfortable and practical for all of us, nothing has been
done”.
They also consider themselves as the ones to ignite the change and an action in this direction and, although they do not have activities and projects directed in changing or adapting the built environment, they are certainly aware of its need and of their role in this.
“Today, there are also lower pavements, new low-floor busses, so ours can use
them etc. I think the best results would be reached if experts and nonprofits
who deal with these kinds of things would work together”, she adds.
As a results of all the activities directed to upstream and downstream factors and by which they promote behaviors which in the end benefit the society, Sonček respondent made a parallel between the state at the time of their founding and today.
She explains:
“We believe and we are sure, we are the ones who can do it and we are sure
that the situation 30 years ago is completely different from the one we have
today. It is a huge difference in the way people behave towards those with
disabilities”.
Social marketing means the application of marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors to benefit society and the target audience (Kotler and Lee 2008, 7). These two organizations actually use them in order to achieve a change of community behaviors, namely volunteering, but also to influence and achieve behavior and belief objectives, namely raising the awareness of the community about the people with disabilities, as well as the children and youth, but also to achieve that they actually accept those groups and change and improve the behavior towards them.
They do this by using 4P’s - product, price, place and promotion, but also by using other different ways to make an impact on social issues through different upstream and downstream methods, such as social policy as suggested by Kotler and Lee (2008, 15-23).
First of all, both respondents are clearly aware of their target market. ZPM respondent says:
“Our organization is actually so wide it covers children and young adolescents,
family, parents, children in need, children who actually have no problems at all
in terms of social problems, but also children and families in need, e.g. with
financial problems, children with disabilities etc.”
On the other hand, Sonček respondent was a bit less concrete, explaining the fact that cerebral palsy has a wide range, but also providing a rough estimate of “another 1.000 people who could be our members”, in addition to the 450 regular members who pay their membership fee and participate in Sonček activities.
Their product includes their projects and activities directed towards these groups.
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ZPM respondent presented their daily programs which take place in their House of Creativity of the Youth in Maribor. He also mentions other programs: “A wink at the Sun”, “Postman Pavli, “Reading badge” etc.
“Besides these programs implemented on the level of our Network, there are
also holidays”, he says.
Actually both organizations organize holidays during the entire year - ZPM in their VIRC center in Poreč, Croatia and in the House of Miloš Zidanšek on Pohorje, while Sonček takes their members to their center in Vrtiče and Kungota. While talking on their activities, Sonček respondent mentions that:
“the Association delivers a wide range of activities, but the main ones are our
daily care and housing communities for persons with disabilities”.
Among the activities listed on their website are also swimming, therapeutic colonies, personal assistance etc. Further explaining, she also points out the main goal of their activities is:
“... to raise awareness of the community and general public through different
ways, through different channels, like media, social networks, by presence etc”.
So, to promote their activities and, by that, their social goals, they use promotional channels according to the available funds. An example of a promotional message used by ZPM is “Conversation is the answer”, used for their TOM phone, a help hotline for children and youth.
ZPM, as explained previously, undertakes actions to influence the policy.
“Other way is through media, when we want to reach certain thing”, says ZPM
respondent. He explains: “For me, marketing is promotion, some targeted
promotion of an idea or of a product or a service... we need to know the
market”.
So, they place these messages both online and in printed media, but what also makes them stand out are the efforts to “be present, to be out there”, as Sonček respondent pointed out several times.
As mentioned earlier, Sonček has a charity shop in Maribor, which puts their target group in the spotlight, while ZPM places their “services” in their centers:
“We have three centers... So, two centers are dislocated, one is right here in the
city center and here, every day, every afternoon, sometimes, if needed, also on
Sundays , different programs and activities take place”.
What is also important is the fact their target groups don’t pay for these organizations’ activities. So, the price is a financial cost for these activities, which are covered through different funding opportunities by municipalities and local community funds, as well as the EU funds. Important sources of finances for both organizations are donations made by companies, which will be explained later.
So, what is important here, is that they do all this to make an impact on society and this is what sets them apart from organizations with financial motivation and financial gain as the main goal
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They undertake all these activities to achieve social goals, to improve the local community and, as ZPM respondent says:
“We are able to help those who have problems adapting and by implementing
our programs, we contribute to the society and raise the quality of time we
spend together, but also raise the quality of our society in which we all live
together”.
Sonček respondent concludes:
“... it is better to have all of the children together, rather than to exclude them...
It is important to raise awareness of the society. I think, lately, the society is
becoming more aware”.
Based on this goal and the techniques and ways they use, but also besides the fact the
respondents are not familiar with the term social marketing, the hypothesis
H2: “Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in their activities to
promote behaviors which will contribute to communities” can be CONFIRMED.
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIORS TO IMPACT
Social marketing influences social behaviors with an aim to create an added value for the community, a benefit for the target audience and general society. Andreasen and Kotler (2008, 330-331) made a distinction among types of social behavior change programs according to the level of involvement. Therefore, behaviors can be individual and group, continuing and one-time only, as well as low and high involvement.
As both organizations promote voluntary work, they initiate a continuing behavior of individuals who spend their free time volunteering for a good cause.
On the other hand, through their charity activities, such as promotion of donating money to good cause or collecting food for schools, clothes, shoes etc. for children, these two organizations motivate individual one-time behaviors (Ibid., 331).
The interviews focus was, among other things, on behavior of individuals who support the work of these two organizations by either donating to them, which is a one-time, or by volunteering for them, which is a continuing behavior.
H3: Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in order to achieve an
individual one-time behavior
One-time behaviors assume taking an action based on a certain comprehension, an understanding of something which makes target group react in certain way. These actions usually mean a certain cost, which necessarily doesn’t have to be financial. As Kotler and Lee (2008, 8) highlight, social marketer’s action can be directed to getting target groups to: accept a new behavior, reject a potentially undesirable behavior, modify a current behavior or abandon an old undesirable one.
According to Andreasen and Kotler (Ibid., 331), donating money to charity is considered as an individual one-time behavior of a low involvement.
What the interviews actually showed is that, in terms of nonprofit organizations and especially in case of ZPM and Sonček, not only individuals donate. Huge part of
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donations actually comes from business sector, from companies which support their work as regular.
ZPM respondent explains:
“We know the difference between sponsors and donors. Sponsors expect to be
promoted through our activities, it is important for them to be represented as
socially responsible or as supporters of a certain idea, to be perceived as family-
friendly, child-friendly, animal-friendly etc”.
He continues to explain the motivation behind:
“We are known not only for our long tradition, but also for our specific
activities. So, this is why sponsors usually offer us to cooperate. We also have
our own marketing already prepared... we promote them on our website, we
offer some promotional opportunities to sponsors to be able to implement these
programs”.
According to Sonček respondent, to raise donations, they use media channels, but also promotion in the local newspaper Večer, they enable companies to donate a part of their profits or create specific actions, like the one with the Post of Slovenia.
She further compares the situation in this regard to that in the UK:
“It is a characteristic also for Slovenia, maybe something we inherited from
Yugoslavia. Our donors are mostly companies. Abroad, this is completely
different, e.g. in England, organizations get larger part of donations from
individuals, not companies”.
Besides donations and sponsorships, individuals also donate their money to these two organizations, but not as regularly or not in even the close amounts as in the more developed Europe, as Sonček respondent concluded.
ZPM respondent concludes the same:
“At least in Maribor, we don’t have individuals who would donate on a monthly
basis”.
However, they do participate in certain programs of the Associations, such as “The wink at the Sun” project to fundraise for summer holidays. These funds come from individuals, not only the companies.
“Numerous unknown donors and those signed by their name donate are
funding. It is a pile of resources. Then, different companies also join, those who
do not expect any kind of media support or public thank you, they simply donate
in order to provide summer holidays for children in need”, he explained.
He further presented a project by ZPM Moste Polje who:
“has a sponsorship program called ‘Godparents’ for individuals who decided to
donate money to help a concrete child according to their capabilities and in
regards to the mutual agreement”.
The campaign of this “sister” organization is promoted through radio and other media and is rather successful.
When asked if they see themselves in a similar campaign, ZPM respondent says:
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“So far, we haven’t done anything like this and still haven’t thought of a story
like this”.
What they actually did was to create another program “Let’s enable the dreams” with inclusion as the main tool to fight the crisis and achieve a social impact.
By including talented children from both financially stable and financially challenged families, they achieve inclusion, which is for this organization a more important goal than collecting donations:
“If we give a child an opportunity to develop this potential with those similar to
them, then we accomplish something”.
He adds:
“What we achieve with this is that we connect experts, young experts get some
teaching or mentoring experience and references, while the youth gets new
knowledge. This program has strongly highlighted social component through
networking”.
All of this actually leads to conclusion they do not use social marketing to achieve an individual one-time behavior in the sense of donations from individuals, although all their actions actually have a larger social goal. What they do achieve is continuing good relations with companies who support their work and, by that, get to be perceived as socially responsible.
ZPM respondent confirms:
“There are also those who feel socially responsible or it seems to them in a
certain time that they should donate some financial support. Usually they
contact us. Sometimes we write ourselves, promote the possibilities on our
website, sometimes we have campaigns, and sometimes they find us”.
He agrees both companies and individuals can be influenced to donate more:
“We can motivate them, we can influence. We accomplish this by providing
what was expected from us or by implementing what we promise, to report in a
right way, including presentations of results in the media. Second, when we
start with a campaign... we always try to represent the aims and ideas clearly
during the campaign”.
So, even though they do obviously use social marketing, they do not use it to achieve
individual one-time behaviors, except of the terms of companies that contribute and
donate to their causes regularly, so this hypothesis
H3: “Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in order to achieve an
individual one-time behavior” is also REJECTED.
H4: Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in order to achieve an
individual continuing behavior
Both organizations share the same engagement in promoting and achieving the same equal rights for all. And when asked about the ways of getting the community members involved in their activities and achieving their goals, both respondents mentioned their volunteers. Even among their goals, they also state the importance of
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promotion of voluntary work and cooperation with other nonprofit organizations. So, even though they have regular employees, their everyday activities are supported by a large number of volunteers.
In case of Sonček, these volunteers are partially paid for their engagement. The organization applies the Law on volunteers, as there are certain specifics when it comes to providing 24-hour care for persons with disabilities. This is why in Sonček, volunteers are usually refer to as “part-time employees”, says Sonček respondent.
She explains:
“There are usually around 60-70 volunteers a year. This is hard to define,
because we actually give them some fee. They usually get the travel expenses
and food covered, plus some small fee for their work. This is because we need a
volunteer more than it is usually in other organizations”.
She continues:
“It is important to have experts and people with experience and we try to have
them and half of those with no experience in dealing with cerebral palsy, so we
dare to take students and adults with no previous experience”.
By doing so, they are extending the method of inclusion to their volunteers and not only their members. So, as mentioned earlier, this inclusion doesn’t refer only to the children who attend camps, but also targets their volunteers:
“...those who come to our colonies and when they get in touch, it is their first
contact with people with disabilities in many cases”, Sonček respondent explains.
This is actually how they learn to accept people with disabilities, but also learn how to work with them.
“We just get them involved in our colonies to learn through work. We also
organize seminars and trainings for them to get the most important information
on the people with disabilities, such as epilepsy etc. They can learn a lot from
us”, Sonček respondent says.
While commenting on this, ZPM responded highlights:
“They personally become advocates of our idea... Our organization is based not
only on the delivery of an idea. An idea is prolonged and accepted by new
volunteers from year to year”.
As seen from the statement, he refers to their volunteers as advocates, as those who spread the idea of inclusion even further and, what is also important, they do this in a continuous manner.
Both respondents confirmed their volunteers come back from year to year, to invest their time and energy to create a positive change in the society. In order to attract them, both, Sonček and ZPM use the same channels, such as online ads, regular promotion, word-of-mouth, so, usual marketing ways to attract this valuable asset.
“We generally invest in this kind of promotion. Lately we have been sending out
calls for volunteers to schools, as well as faculties with pedagogical courses. We
also connect with deans and school directors”, Sonček respondent explains.
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She also confirms they actually have long-term volunteers and that they invest in continuing relationship with them:
“There are volunteers who worked with us for several years, some of them are now
our employees. Actually, they were our volunteers, they fell in love with this calling,
they also found themselves professionally in our organization... We try to keep
them and usually this is something they want, too”.
Both organizations dedicate special time to get their volunteers prepared for the challenges by organizing meetings, by providing them with trainings and other educating opportunities, especially when it comes to taking care of people with certain special needs.
ZPM respondent explains:
“We use the method of inclusion, which means we also prepare ourselves for
children with disabilities, not only in terms of physical space where they will
spend time, if you like... but also in terms of activities which will enable these
children to take active part, up to the point of how much their abilities allow
them, to integrate and participate in all activities with other children.”
“We prepare prior to our activities for all of them. For some groups, our
preparations are a routine”, he continues.
ZPM activities are implemented with the help and support from their numerous volunteers - over 800 of them take part in organization’s activities during the year. Their respondent mentions they achieve: “... 60-70 thousands of hours (of voluntary work)”. He further explains the motivation behind:
“... We influence this (raising the quality of the society) through our volunteers.
If you ask us how we do it, well, there is always an idea, something that keeps
you going. People around us are spiritual enough, dedicated enough to back this
idea up”.
This dedication was also evident from the founding days of both organizations.
ZPM respondent explains how the organization was founded:
“After the Second World War, there were numerous orphans, children of
Partizans, many children were left without parents. Many people, not just the
state, but also numerous individuals started looking for ways to help them. They
organized themselves in societies and this is how our organization was created”.
Sonček respondent also points out the personal experience and motivation of individuals who founded their organization:
“The Association was founded by parents of children with disabilities in year
1980, because until that year, there has been little done in the area, especially
regarding help. But we, the parents, we know the best what it means, what can
be done to help”.
What came as a surprise is the fact this respondent is also officially a volunteer, but what gets her moving is her personal motivation:
“I am also a volunteer, I do not have a salary... In my case, it is more about
some other goals, personal interest, because I cannot watch still how things are
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developing. This is why I work, it is my personal desire to get the things
organized, to raise the quality of living for these people, to make it more
comfortable for them... this is why I volunteer”.
Having all this in mind, we can say the organizations use social marketing to achieve an
individual continuing behavior by engaging volunteers and having a long-term
cooperation with them, which means this hypothesis
H4: “Analyzed nonprofit organizations use social marketing in order to achieve an
individual continuing behavior” can be CONFIRMED.
POTENTIAL USE OF (SOCIAL) MARKETING IN THE ORGANIZATION
Regarding the two following hypotheses, it is hard to actually accept or reject any of them for the simple reason that neither of the respondents did actually know enough about social marketing to make any projections regarding its use. However, they did largely discuss the potential of public relations and of certain marketing techniques.
H5: Management of analyzed nonprofit organizations believe social marketing can
lead to higher voluntary involvement of the community in their activities
Exchange is the central element of social marketing. Andreasen and Kotler (2003, 333) highlight that these exchanges are “complex, personal and anticipatory”, as for every alternative, an individual is giving up on something - he is exchanging costs for benefits. Organizations benefit from these exchanges in form of support from their audiences and social marketing offers an alternative where there is not enough interest from the side of individuals to engage in certain behaviors (Rothschild in Lai et al 2009, 987).
As there is a lack of research about social marketing, especially in Slovenia (Kamin 2011, 1659), the interviews aimed at learning if management in these two organizations believe that social marketing can help them include more of their audience in their activities through volunteering and mentoring, as forms of community involvement, and in the end, help them raise awareness of the problems that children, youth and persons with disabilities face.
As elaborated earlier, both organizations achieve social change and are raising awareness of the community towards their target groups. Through their activities and projects, they are actually changing the situation and are improving the life in the community, as earlier mentioned by ZPM respondent.
Neither of respondents was actually familiar with social marketing in detail, not even the basics, but as it actually assumes the use of marketing principles and techniques to achieve social change and benefits for the society, they discussed marketing in general.
“For me, marketing is promotion of an idea, or let’s say a product or a service.
In any case, it is a product which we wish to “sell”... so we need to know the
market. Policy and politics are also a market where something is exchanged for
something else... and at the end there is a client. Usually, a client is someone
who needs the product or thinks he needs the product”,
says ZPM respondent showing his understanding of marketing.
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“Client is sometimes someone who is not even aware he needs a product, these
kinds of products, we can say, are socially necessary”, he concludes.
As already mentioned, both organizations use 4P’s to create, place and promote services which will bring benefits to their target groups. They engage in PR activities by default, using mostly printed media and radio to spread their message when there is a concrete project or fundraising campaign.
A simple comparison shows both organizations have websites, as well as Facebook profiles (ZPM Maribor with over 3.000 followers and Sonček Maribor with some 500 followers and a special page for their charity shop). Neither of the two organizations is present on any other social network.
When asked if they think they can influence the policies and legislation into benefit their target groups, Sonček response showed their awareness of the importance of promotion:
“Yes and I have made some suggestions for a conference on this topic. There
should be a lot of promotion, press conferences, PR, marketing etc. I have
already made an agreement with a PR agency, which is ready to work with us
with minimum costs, but we don’t have even that much money. I think it would
be really great to have a proper PR and marketing”.
What is surprising is that neither of organizations has PR manager or a person in charge of marketing or public relations, although the interviews showed their awareness of the importance of marketing and public relations in their work, especially in terms of fundraising. So, they do understand the importance and potential of marketing, especially of public relations, but are usually limited by insufficient funds.
Besides their efforts to make a downstream influence through already mentioned media and inclusion, as the main educational method, they also influence upstream factors to make a social impact, as suggested by Andreasen (Kotler and Lee 2008, 22-23).
Anyhow, both respondents are aware of their role and of the results and benefits of their programs and actions for the society, but they are not familiar with social marketing and it cannot be said they actually believe it can lead to a higher voluntary involvement of the community in their activities.
Even though they do achieve social marketing goals, due to the respondents’ lack of
social marketing knowledge, they were not able to either reject or confirm their belief
in its potential to increase voluntary involvement of the community in their activities, so
this hypothesis
H5: “Management of analyzed nonprofit organizations believe social marketing can
lead to higher voluntary involvement of the community in their activities” is also
REJECTED.
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H6: Management of analyzed nonprofit organizations believe the use of social
marketing can improve social impact of nonprofits in general and in terms of
changing behaviors
Andreasen (2002, 4) presented the barriers for growth of social marketing identified by the Social Marketing Institute (founded in 1999), where the first issue presented was the lack of appreciation of the discipline at the level of top management. Analysis of more than 300 interviews showed that nonprofits’ managers are “unaware either of social marketing or of its potential for organizing and implementing major social change programs“ (Ibid.). There is no data on Slovenian manager's beliefs on social marketing, and this hypothesis was an attempt to change that.
During the interviews, respondents were asked to explain how they can influence the community to take a bigger role in solving problems that their target groups face. Both respondents actually proved they are very much aware of their role in the society, as well as of the importance of their work for the society and their local community.
“The state can support and help us a lot, because nonprofit organizations, such
as we are, are really a pillar of society, a pillar of its development and the state
should, by any means, support us”, says Sonček respondent.
ZPM respondent considers it their tradition to influence the society. And, just as the Sonček respondent, he sees their role as complementing the role of the state:
“Public sector cannot address all the problems of our society and this is where
we come to the stage. We are the ones who have to implement certain things,
reach goals we set for ourselves. Maybe... I say MAYBE these things are not as
important as the ones addressed by the public sector, but are important for the
society to function”.
They are also aware of the actual change they made since their founding:
“Step by step, things do change. And what we have today is a proof of it. 30
years ago, these people were hiding. Everything in this area was completely
different. Now, we have situation where persons with disabilities are very
welcome”, Sonček respondent adds.
Through all of this, as well as everything written so far, we see they work on and do actually achieve goals and changes which benefit the society in general. Understanding of their role in the society and the importance of their programs and activities is what is in line with social marketing.
Sonček respondent concludes the interview with a statement, clearly pointing out they are aware of how important they are for the local community and society in general:
“Our volunteers usually meet this population for the first time. This is something
they also get a lot from. The society can be changed a lot and with our work, it
really gained a lot, especially in terms of humanity, assistance and helping each
other, accepting people with disabilities, understanding we are not different etc.
This is what our role is”.
Both organizations actually achieve behavior changes in terms of acceptance of persons with disabilities, on one side, and raised awareness of the children’s and
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youth’s problems, on the other. They also change individual continuing behaviors, by engaging volunteers in long-term cooperation, as explained previously.
However, when it comes to individual one-time behaviors, neither of organizations is satisfied with the situation. To the question if they believe they would have better results if there would be a person in charge of PR or marketing, Sonček respondent answered affirmatively and further explains on the example of SCOPE, the UK organization they cooperate with, who have 15 employees in their marketing department:
“... and when we get all the numbers, they have 18 million GBP in donations
each year and out of this number, 7 million comes from individuals”.
This shows her awareness of marketing potential to impact the individual one-time behaviors, as well as the continuing ones. Still, it is also not possible to speak of the beliefs of the management of these organizations, as they are not familiar with social marketing, just as in the case of the previous hypothesis.
Therefore, although these organizations do create a social impact and achieve behavior
changes, they do not do it as a result of their social marketing knowledge or their belief
social marketing can achieve all this. Therefore the hypothesis
H6: “Management of analyzed nonprofit organizations believe the use of social
marketing can improve social impact of nonprofits in general and in terms of changing
behaviors” is also REJECTED.
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5 CONCLUSION
Nonprofit organizations play a significant role in the society of today, although they did make a long way since they first appeared. The initial self-organized groups of citizens became important players in society development and policy-making, so, today, their work is changing to almost every area of human interest and their number is increasing every day.
The term itself came from the American management theory and is very wide, covering everything from religious organizations to government entities.
Nonprofit is usually born as an idea by a group of people who have a will to change a certain problem in society. Their contribution to society lies exactly in providing numerous services and helping solve a huge specter of society problems, from fighting poverty, hunger and violence to providing scholarships and education opportunities for people belonging to different age groups.
So, it is not just the increasing number of nonprofits that is important. The variety of their work is also changing to almost every area of human interest. Their specific goals may be different, but their ultimate, common goal is the same – the betterment of society.
Nonprofits are not strictly volunteer organizations, they employ staff and implement different programs. They are using management and marketing techniques in order to reach their goals, fundraise, organize events, evaluate and disseminate their results. Their activities require financial and organizational stability and this is how marketing finally found its way into the nonprofit area.
Marketing stretches across nonprofits business, from its visual presentation and design of products and services, to the way organization markets them and the way it actually communicates to their target audiences.
Social marketing concept was introduced in the 1970s, as nonprofit organizations realized that the same marketing tools and techniques used on products and services could be applied to marketing of ideas.
The focus of social marketing is on how marketers can change consumer behaviors to benefit individuals and society, although it is very often misunderstood and many mistake it for communication, social advertising, social propaganda or even social media marketing.
Social marketing can be defined as a “process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit society (public health, safety, the environment and communities), as well as the target audience”.
In social marketing, marketers want their target groups to: accept a new behavior, reject a potentially undesirable behavior, modify a current one or abandon an old undesirable one. This is not an easy task, especially when marketers require their target group to change behaviors, which usually means getting out of their comfort zone, like being uncomfortable when donating blood or simply giving more money, in case of buying recycled paper.
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They also have to address certain problems, such as negative demand, the question of motivation, like why would a new behavior be personally interesting for target group, or the value-change problem, which means the new behavior must be seen as socially desirable. However, even with all these obstacles, nonprofits are becoming more and more aware of the importance of social marketing.
In theory and in practice, social marketing has a short history in Slovenia and the term is usually misunderstood. Social marketing has been acknowledged as a concept and in practice, but still, organizations do not use social marketing to create social change.
Although authors point out problems with terminology, since in Slovenia the term marketing has a negative connotation and the use of social marketing terminology has been really confusing, critical barrier for social marketing growth in Slovenia is actually the lack of proper research as the basis for social marketing projects.
The overall purpose of the thesis was to learn more about nonprofit organizations and potential use of social marketing in Slovenia, as a way to change behaviors of organizations’ target groups in order to benefit both individuals and society in general.
The goal was contribute to the existing body of knowledge on social marketing in nonprofit sector by analyzing and documenting findings on social marketing as a discipline and its application in two Slovenian nonprofit organizations:
- Zveza prijateljev mladine Maribor (The Friends of Youth Association Maribor) and
- Mariborsko društvo za cerebralno paralizo Sonček (Maribor Society for Cerebral Palsy).
Literature review showed social marketing is a relatively new field in Slovenia and the term is relatively unknown, especially regarding its use in purposes other than behavior changes related to health issues. In-depth interviews confirmed this, as respondents said they are not familiar with neither the term nor the meaning of social marketing. Moreover, they explained their activities through the scope of commercial marketing.
Interviews also showed that neither of organizations has a marketing department or employees working on marketing, although they are aware of their role in changing behaviors of society towards their target groups.
Social marketing influences social behaviors and creates a benefit for the target audience and general society. Through social marketing campaigns, marketers usually focus on influencing audience to accept a new behavior, reject a potentially undesirable one, modify a current one or abandon an old, undesirable one.
These behaviors can be individual and group, continuing and one-time only, as well as low and high involvement.
Social marketing campaign always has a behavior objective and the most important criteria on choosing the right objective is its potential impact - will an audience’s change of behavior be meaningful.
An example of potential behavior objective for community involvement is volunteering, which both organizations stated as one of their main activities. To promote this activity, they use downstream ways - promotional techniques, such as
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word-of-mouth and ads in social and printed media. Through the method of inclusion, they engage volunteers who learn first-hand about organizations’ target audience.
This is also how they achieve the belief objective, which refers to attitudes, opinions, feelings and values held by the target audience. Marketers can use social marketing to build or change a certain belief.
In case of the two discussed organizations, they showed they are fully aware of the importance of raising awareness and changing public attitudes and behaviors of the community towards their target groups, so, through their activities, they influence downstream and upstream factors.
In case of downstream factors - their target audience and society, the two nonprofits use media and education through inclusion. To influence upstream factors - politicians, media figures, community activists, law officers, judges etc., they direct their activities to influencing social policy and, in some cases, even the infrastructure and built environments.
One-time behaviors are based on certain understanding of issue, which makes individuals or target group react in a certain way. These actions also designate a certain cost for individual, which is not always a financial one. Social marketing can be used to motivate individual one-time behaviors, such as donations to charity, which are considered as individual one-time behavior of a low involvement.
The interviews proved the two organizations do not focus on promotion of one-time individual behaviors as a social marketing priority, at least not systematically.
On the other hand, both organizations promote and support voluntary work and, by doing so, they are initiating and promoting continuing behavior of individuals who spend their free time volunteering for a good cause. And although it is clear that respondents are not familiar with social marketing theory, it is clear they do use marketing techniques and ways to create a continuing individual behavior change.
Due to the lack of research on social marketing in Slovenia, as well as the lack of data on Slovenian managers’ beliefs on social marketing, this thesis aimed at learning more about its potential to raise awareness of individuals and community on certain issues for Slovenian nonprofits.
The research showed that ZPM and Sonček Maribor do raise awareness of the community towards their target groups, that they do achieve a social change and that they are improving the life in the community.
Although they are not familiar with the term itself and their knowledge on social marketing is limited, they confirmed they use marketing methods and techniques in certain cases in order to achieve social change and create a benefit for individuals and society at large.
Due to their lack of knowledge on the topic, respondents were not able to either confirm their belief in the potential of social marketing to increase voluntary involvement of the community in their activities or to improve social impact of nonprofits in general and in terms of changing behaviors.
It is, however, clear that nonprofit organizations play an extremely important role in society and that social marketing can contribute to achieving their goals.
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Both organizations achieve certain behavior changes regarding their target groups. They are raising awareness of the community about persons with disabilities, on one side, and raised awareness of the children’s and youth’s problems, on the other. They also influence individual continuing behaviors, by engaging volunteers in long-term cooperation.
However, when it comes to individual one-time behaviors, especially when it comes to donating money to nonprofits, neither of organizations is satisfied with the situation. Both respondents stated their dissatisfaction with the organization of marketing activities, mostly caused by insufficient financial and human resources, and this is where I see the potential of social marketing.
General conclusion is encompassing that, although nonprofits are not really familiar with the term and meaning of social marketing itself, they do influence behaviors of their community for good.
Lack of financial and human resources, as well as state support, are the biggest obstacles for these two organizations to invest in marketing and social marketing in achieving their goals.
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ANNEX
INTERVIEW PROTOCOL
START _______h END ________h Date _______________ Place _______________
Respondent _______________________ Organization __________________________
Interviewed by __________________________________________________________
MATERIALS
− Interviewer’s clock
− Recording device and notepad
− Information sheet and consent form
INTRODUCTION: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. My name is Nihada Prnjavorac, I am a final year student at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor. As a part of my graduate course, I am preparing a master thesis.
As my area of interest, I chose social marketing and its application in practice in Slovenian nonprofit organizations. This master thesis is prepared as a qualitative research, under the supervision of my mentor Aleksandra Pisnik, PhD.
The purpose of this interview is to learn more about your organization and its activities and social marketing application in practice - in your regular activities and projects.
Social marketing is relatively new discipline and the body of knowledge on this topic is still very restricted.
Your answers will help me draw conclusions on the scale of use of social marketing in nonprofit organizations in Slovenia. It will also help me make concrete recommendations for further use, in order for your organization to reach its goals.
GROUND RULES: The interview will last approximately 45-60min. During the interview, I will ask you questions regarding your organization and the activities and projects you organize, your target groups, your current position in the organization, as well as the questions regarding your experience and beliefs regarding the main topic of the interview - social marketing and nonprofit organizations.
During an interview, you are welcome to ask questions yourself or if you would rather not answer a certain question. You can also stop the interview at any time for any reason.
Please, remember that we want to know what you think and feel and that there are no right or wrong answers.
If you agree, I would like to record the conversation. This would enable me to get all the details, as well as to participate in this conversation more attentively.
Everything we talk about will be used exclusively for the purpose of my master thesis and available to my mentor, my teachers and academic community for educational purposes only.
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CONSENT: Before we start, please, read carefully the information sheet and the consent form. If you agree with what is stated below, please, sign the consent.
QUESTIONS: The interview takes about one hour. The interview will tend to focus on the organization when it is operating at its best in several different topic areas:
A. THE RESPONDENT’S BACKGROUND
I would like to begin with some questions about your engagement with the organization.
1) How long have you been with the organization? Can you tell me a bit about your position, work and experience within the organization?
B. THE ORGANIZATION
We will continue with some questions about the organization and its background.
2) Can you explain organization’s mission and goals?
3) Tell me more about your target audience and what activities do you have in order to fulfill your goals towards them?
C. MARKETING AND SOCIAL MARKETING
I would like to get your opinion about marketing and its use in nonprofit organizations.
4) What does word marketing mean to you? How do you understand the role and importance of marketing today?
5) Can you tell me how do you perceive marketing techniques and do you use it in your activities and projects?
6) What has been effective, what worked? What have been your accomplishments?
7) How familiar are you with social marketing? How would you describe it in your own words? How often do you use it in your activities?
D. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT BEHAVIORS TO IMPACT
8) How important it is for your organization to have a social impact? In what ways do you think your organization can influence community and society?
9) One of your goals is to reach equal rights for your members. Do you think your organization can change community’s behavior towards those with cerebral palsy or with disabilities in general, or towards children and youth?
10) How do you involve (include) the community in achieving your goals?
E. INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIORS TO IMPACT
11) Tell me more about your volunteers and voluntary program. How do you involve individuals in continuous volunteering activities? How do you promote it?
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12) How can your organization achieve a higher voluntary involvement of individuals (by volunteering and donating) in your activities?
F. POTENTIAL USE OF SOCIAL MARKETING IN THE ORGANIZATION
13) In your opinion, how can the organization influence and motivate the community to take a more active role in solving the problems of your target group?
14) Do you think you can motivate individuals to donate more or more often to your cause? If yes, please, explain how.
G. CLOSING
15) Is there anything else you would like to share with me regarding the topics discussed during this interview? Maybe something we missed what you consider to be important?
In case you know of any similar research, tools or resources which might be useful for my thesis, please, send them to me.
Thank you very much for your time and participation in this interview. Your responses are highly valuable and provided my with some very important information and an insight in practical use of social marketing in practice in Slovenia.
You are welcome to read the final report on this research once it is completed.