Marketing for non-profit organizations. (c1994)

Abstract

The objective of marketing is customer satisfhction. The objective of non-profit organizations is to provide the best service at the lowest cost by attracting more funds, more volunteers, giving better programs and enhancing their images in fl"ont of their publics. Marketing is considered a professional tool that many non-profit organizations feared to employ, and many still do. The purpose of this project ts to discuss and analyze the use of marketing in non-prolit organizations. How to convince the officials of non-profit organizations, that marketing will help them better achieve their goals, and how to implement such a program at a Red Cross blood bank. This study shows the different needs and obligations of blood banks and their use of volunteers. An overview of volunteer management programs is also included. For more elaborated knowledge about how blood banks operate and how they deal with the issue of donor recruitment and retention, interviews were conducted with organizers of collection campaigns, administrators and medical advisors at collection facilities. In addition, Red Cross published materials were reviewed. The idea of the Red Cross dates back to 1859 with the battle of "Solferino", and ever since, it has grown to become the biggest non-profit organization with the largest number of volunteers all over the world. According to the findings of this research, Red Cross blood banks spread all around the world, operate in different ways, since they serve different communities and have different resources. One common problem is budget limitation. If the administrators at different blood banks do not coordinate the work between collection and recruitment personnel, and do not promote the idea of motivating people to become regular blood donors, costs will eventually increase thus leading to lower productivity.