PR FOR NGOs

In today's world Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and non-profits play an unique and important role. Some ten to fifteen years back NGOs and non-profits were considered secondary players in the world of public opinion, public policy, government, etc but today they occupy a primary position influencing and shaping what we think and do about issues that are central to our lives and our world.

Phenomenon of globalisation during the twentieth century has increased the importance of NGOs which in turn has led to an increase in the public relations sector as compared to profit business.

A non-governmental organisation is defined as a group of people interested in serving the community at large on an honorary basis in some area of community development. It seeks to raise its own funds through voluntary contributions or donations from both the individuals and the institutions for undertaking service-oriented schemes.

How NGO PR is different

Public relations in the NGO sector differs from other sectors, in terms of persuasive components of at least five reasons :

• to communicate and transmit reliable messages relating to activities, initiatives, projects under the participatory citizenship, solidarity and altruistic
• to create conditions for social adhesion which programs and action oriented to community and people
• to capture attention and interest policy and administrative makers to promote programs to support ideas and projects that advocate
• public relations activities are not subject to the existence of endogenous crisis by non-profit organisation but are caused by external factors objective in case content for the NGO campaigning in public
• primary mission of public relations achieved for the benefit of NGO is to encourage social participation around the ideal of sustained public without ignoring the other dimensions of organisational public relations (reputation, credibility, transparency, adherence)

NGO PR strategies

It would be misleading to suggest that conservative-minded governments and oil companies are the only ones that use PR in influence the media, public and policy agendas. In an effort to appear more politically relevant, environmental NGOs increasingly utilize public relations techniques and rely heavily on corporate communication consultancies to assist them in reaching the hearts and minds of key publics and policy-makers. Greenpeace, arguable, happens to be the most visible and well-known environmental NGO in the world. It first demonstrated its grasp of publicity by releasing footage in 1974 of its initial whaling protest, which it released to the Canadian media (Doyle,2007). These attempts have been traditionally in-house, but contemporary environmental NGOs are also increasingly leveraging PR firms and consultancies to streamline their message to solicit media attention and influence policy and public discourse.

The David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) is a good example of a Canadian environmental NGO leveraging its influence and PR industry connections to influence the global warming debate.

Need For NGO PR

A special feature of all NGOs is that they heavily depend on fund-raising activities to build their financial resources. Such fund-raising campaigns need public relations communication support as fund-raising is seen to be a major exercise for the NGOs. The need for PR in NGOs is basically four-fold:

1. NGOs entirely depend for their finances on fund-raising campaigns
2. NGO has to attract the attention of charitable trusts and donors for financial help
3. Third, relates to the dissemination of information about its services, plans as to enable the people to make use of them for their betterment
4. Fourth, a NGO has to maintain good media relations so that the media carries their messages both to the donors and to the beneficiaries besides building image f the organisations.

It is for these reasons that NGOs must have PR set up with adequate trained personnel to carry the goals and in the process gain in the goodwill of their stakeholders. PR is seen as an essential responsibility of NGOs in seeking donations on one hand and projecting the organisation as service oriented for the public on the other. PR practised in the NGO sector is not very different from how PR is practised in the business or corporate sector and happens to be the best way of promoting NGOs producing far more positive results in fund-raising, media coverage and projection of the organisation.