You Are in Sales & Marketing

So you work for an NGO? Then you are in sales and marketing. Everything you do, like it or not, will draw people toward you or away, and at some time, if you want to survive, you will have to make a sale.

OK, so you don’t like the word “sales” because it is so laden with the idea of the traditional or worse, unscrupulous sales. But like it or not, the most important part of your work is to be able to close a sale. 

 You are not selling widgets, true. You have an even tougher job: selling ideas, change, hopes and successes often not yet realized. Now with the professional world of non-profits and service organizations increasingly less segmented between the provider and the development staff. We are all involved in getting others to commit their resources to our organization. Today, perhaps the most important part of our job has to do with getting people to take action, to close the sale, to put their money into your organization.

Everyone trying to persuade anyone of anything—even to part with your most valuable resource to learn something (your time) is selling. Nothing is free. It will at least cost you time.

When you want someone to change their behavior, even a little and so give you money, or take the time to understand what your organization does, you are selling. It may be a very soft sell when you provide information, but you still have to sell them on their worth.

Funds—One Measure of Your Impact

You are already well aware that NGOs have to juggle multiple relationships and not just the simple seller-buyer transaction of traditional business. NGOs have their donors, their beneficiaries, and their teams to lead and manage. And sooner or later, many realize they also have a fourth as they realize there are policies to impact. So their areas of influence need to expand even further. So right there, you have at least four different stakeholders in your venture—the three more obvious ones you already engage and those involved in policy development.

Have you developed ways to measure all the other impacts as well? It may not be as simple as measuring your bank account, but it is still good to track the ways in which you do impact each of your stakeholders. This will help them and you, better understand your value to them and the larger community.