Barnardos As A Typical Non Profit Organization

Barnardos is a leading social welfare and charity organization in U.K. Its aim is to help abused, disadvantaged, and troubled children, young people and their families to build a better future. Its vision is that the lives of all children and young people should be free from poverty, abuse and discrimination. They run critical support, counselling, nurturing, adoption, development and teaching projects across the U.K. It works currently through 394 projects. Its mission is to promote, on behalf of children, vital issues for attention and, when necessary, intervention by the public and the governments. Their mission is backed by the slogan, “We believe in children.”

SEGMENTATION: Market segmentation, is considered as “One of the most fundamental concepts of modern marketing”(Wind1978, p.317), and a crucial strategy for the non-profit sector as well. (Smith and Beik, 1982; Yavas et al., 1980; Shapiro, 1973; Mindak and Bybee, 1971). Wendell R. Smith defines it as, “Segmentation is based upon more precise adjustment of product and marketing effort to consumer or user requirements. In the language of the economist, segmentation is disaggregative in its effects and tends to bring about recognition of several demand schedules where only one was recognised before.” (Smith1956,p.6). Segmentation refers to subdividing the market into smaller sub segments based on the criteria of specificity in terms of certain selected criteria. Harley Davidson has become the market leader in bikes because of its segmentation strategies. Its sales have increased by 15% per year since the 1990’s. Harley Davidson divides its market into six segments- tour gliders ( comprise 14% generally older people who use bikes for long trips), dream riders (comprise about 39%), hard core( comprises only 9.7% and includes younger less educated people), hog heaven ( comprises 8.7% who are the true bike lovers), Zen riders ( comprise 20% for whom riding a motorcycle is a spiritual experience) and live to ride ( comprise 8% for whom their bike is everything). Thus the segments differ both psychographically and demographically from each other.

Barnardos’s products are children’s (and young people’s) assistance of every kind. Therefore, its market i.e., the beneficiaries of its service products are children and young people. Barnardos segment the market by “range of age” say, 1 yr. to 5 yrs., and 10 to 15 years. It also segments its market by the nature of need of the beneficiaries and types of services rendered. The beneficiaries of services are-

socially disadvantaged children

vulnerable, abused or exploited

counselling

Homeless, poor and destitute

In fact, its several hundred projects represent a specific product uniquely targeted to what may be called small but specific sub segment of the market.

Barnardos has another market, viz, the donors and suppliers of funds. Government aid, grants, private donors, public subscriptions and contributions etc. are all tapped for funding of Barnardos’s projects running into millions of pounds per year. These two markets:

The beneficiaries market and

Funds sources markets are complementary.

Funds market are further sub segmented according to the nature of the source; the size of the donations, contributions; the nature of the approach required etc.

TARGETING THE MARKET: as defined by Kotler et al (2008, p 46) is, ″The process of evaluating each market segments attractiveness and selecting one or more segments to enter”. Starbucks, a leading retailer, roaster and a brand of speciality coffee all over the world targets customers of diverse ages, incomes and ethnicity with varying tastes and preferences. They offer juices and cocoa for children, creamy blended drinks for those who don’t like coffee, and various types of brewed coffee for others. It refines its products to the changing tastes of consumers. A profit making company adjusts its marketing mix and promotion mix to target of the market segment, to hit the bull’s eye, so to say. In the case of non-profit organization like Barnardos, with its specific brands of service products, the targeting has to be direct. This direct approach will be mainly twofold:

The children or children groups and their families and the schools, children’s homes or the dwelling clusters of such poorer sections of a society, such as slums, shanties etc. Targeting is done by classifying the universal group according to their needs. Training, counselling, nutrition, teaching, skill-building, or any other support system is specifically designed for target groups. The modality of support and resources to be allocated are based on such targeting. The second approach is related to donors. Barnardos applies the relationship funding technique, i.e. they find donors who share a special connection with their cause. They also have a number of charity shops where people can donate their unwanted things as well as purchase goods donated by others at low prices, helping them raise funds. Barnardos assures its donors that for every £1 that they contribute, 81p goes directly to helping vulnerable children, young people and their families.

MARKETING MIX: According to Kotler et al marketing mix is “The set of controllable tactical marketing tools – product, price, place and promotion- that the firm blends to produce the response it wants from the target market.” (p 48, 2008 ). It is vital for the success of any firm. The marketing mix of a profit and non profit organisations differ greatly. Hewlett Packard offers a variety of tangible products like printers, scanners, laptops, personal computers and intangible services. Its pricing strategy lies in the essence of the brand therefore customers are willing to pay more for its products. It has a direct sales force for its corporate clients and other customers are offered products indirectly through retailers and resellers. The promotion campaigns of hp target a range of segments. Its most recent advertisement ‘the computer is personal again’, shows its consumer research.

Barnardo’s has a relatively different marketing mix. It offers a variety of intangible programs and services in areas like child poverty, education, children in trouble with law, sexual exploitation, homelessness, disability and inclusion, domestic violence, advocacy, alcohol and substance misuse etc. It helps 100,000 children and young people through 394 vital projects across UK. It promotes itself as an organisation devoted to improving the future of children. It uses a blend of communication tools and various mediums to attract donors. Its branding strategies focus on brand awareness. Price for Barnardos refers to the perceived value of its offerings which is the quality of its service, universality, impartiality and most importantly belief in children.

RESOURCE ATTRACTION AND ALLOCATION: In a profit firm resource attraction is looked at upon as a financial function and is also known as sales revenue generation. Resource allocation is at the interface of control, policy and marketing functions. As suggested by Shapiro(1974) in business firms poor resource allocation leads to decreased customer satisfaction which in turn leads to lower resource attraction. British Airways, a flag carrier airline of UK makes resource allocation decisions based on route profitability, considering aircraft type and route economics. The objective is to optimise merged financial results. While Open Skies and City Flyer are considered to be separate segments, their activities are considered to be similar in nature to combine the two segments together with the network passenger and cargo operations. It has only one operating segment for financial reporting purposes, the ‘airline business’. The total sales revenue from this segment for the financial year 2008 was 8601 million pounds. (British Airways annual report). However this concept varies for non profits. Resource allocation determines the basic aim of the organisation which helps them decide their clients and the services it provides them. Resource attraction or fund raising is generally in the form of advertising or personal selling. Barnardo’s aims to be the most influential and respected children’s charity ,their work providing unbeatable quality and value for money to children, young people and families. They also aim to support as many of UK’s disadvantaged children as their resources will allow. Thus the main recipients of their services are children and young people involved in any sort of issue from drug misuse to disability; youth crime to mental health; sexual abuse to domestic violence; poverty to homelessness. They run 394 projects all over UK including counselling for children who have been abused, fostering and adoption services, vocational training and disability inclusion groups. Every Barnardo’s project is different but each believes in the potential in every child and young persons. Advertising and direct marketing is used by Barnardo’s for resource attraction. Print ads feature disadvantaged children depicting their future lives in extreme adult situations gain attention. The main aim is to encourage people to act now to secure a child’s future. Direct marketing using all types of mediums was used, the most famous being a national childhood survey to encourage people to begin a relationship with the charity. Here potential donors were urged to rewrite children’s futures through their support. They have five direct marketing cash appeals every year. Barnardo’s income has risen significantly since then. Its total income for 2008 was 215.3 million pounds. (Annual review 2008)

BRANDING: A brand is the idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers connect with, by identifying the name, logo, slogan, or design of the company. A firm in the commercial sector may adopt various branding strategies in order to market its brand. In 1984 Richard Branson a British entrepreneur started Virgin Atlantic Airways. Since its inception he has put the brand Virgin on many other ventures like Virgin mobile, Virgin trains, Virgin Money, Virgin wines etc. it adopts the brand extension strategy primarily because the Virgin logo is well recognized and also the association of the symbol with Branson and Virgin are fundamentals of brand extensions. However this strategy is not always a success. Charity branding is relatively a new concept. Roberts-Wray (1994) rightly pointed out that charities were “under-using their most valuable asset: their brand”. He suggested that charities should market themselves as brands, using conventional, for-profit, brand management techniques. Barnardos branding strategies are centred on brand awareness. Barnardos functionally positions itself as an organisation ‘bringing about the best in every child’, which ‘fights to build better futures for disadvantaged, troubled and abused children’ and symbolically as ‘equality, ‘diversity’, and ‘believe in children ‘. Barnardos ‘giving children back their future’ strategy created to challenge the brand’s perception helped it to turn a generation of its brand rejecters into brand supporters. Brand awareness of Barnardo’s in 2002 rose from 28% to 44%.

Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that marketing can help non profit organisations in a number of ways. Non profit managers’ face a number of difficulties while marketing their products especially while choosing the target market and building an image of their charity. Non profit managers must keep in mind that, “The principal task of the marketing function in a management concept is not so much to be skilful in making the customer do what suits the interests of the business, as to be skilful in conceiving and then making the business do what suits the interest of the customer.” Mckitterick (1957). They must remember that marketing is not about public relations or publicity. Marketing is not sales either. It is not forcing an organisation to accept a planned program. Instead, “Marketing is the assessment of constituent need and the management of the response process to achieve best utilization of programs and optimal financial support. Board and staff work as a team to achieve this goal. The primary manifestation of that teamwork is the strategic organizational market plan.” (Kotler 1982)