Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The role of branding and advertising in your fund raising strategy…

People’s Watch does not really believe in ‘branding and advertising’ for fund raising. As far as possible we try not to market ourselves because we are a human rights organisation and being a public organisation we ensure that we do not undertake any unethical marketing initiative since in most of the cases we are dealing with the lives and livelihood rights of ‘victims’ whose identities have to be respected and protected by us. In addition, human rights work is more effectively carried out with lesser visibility since it is really a risky engagement on our part. It involves a variety of risks, from state to non state factors, according to the cases we deal with.

Do celebrity endorsements really help when it comes to fund generation? Does it really make your job easier?
Although we are not connected with them at all for the moment, celebrities really help in fund raising. Moreover, celebrities do not always refer to people from the film world, but even then they are important for fund raising in human rights work. It does make our job easier as they are able to represent you completely and correctly. Moreover, they can convince all stakeholders more easily than an NGO. However, the most difficult part of this is to make them understand your work and strategies correctly so that they do not misrepresent.

What changes do you feel are required, both in terms of policy and operations, so that the social sector bear fruits in the long run?
The social sector needs to ensure that it makes its work accountable to the public at large. This principle of accountability could be made possible by a functional Board of Trustees or Executive Committee that sits with the organisation at least four times a year to oversee its activities as well as the financial management of the organisation. It is also important for any non-profit organisation to be effective to ensure that in addition to having a band of good activists at the grass roots it also has a good team of senior advisors to guide and review the work undertaken by it.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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