PDC-17: Charity Awareness: The fine line between Awareness and Marketing

PDC-17: Charity Awareness: The fine line between Awareness and Marketing

 

Is charity awareness the same as marketing? Though it might sound similar, it is not. To understand the differences between the two, let's keep interchanging our hats of marketing and awareness and analyze how each of them would approach the same scenarios.

 

Marketing, as we know is the forerunner of the sales process. Before a product is launched, an aggressive marketing campaign is launched.   The effectiveness of marketing is indicated by the sales numbers. Marketing expects immediate results in the form of sales. As the product matures, the marketing campaign tapers.

 

Awareness on the other hand is a continuous initiative and does not expect immediate results. As described earlier, the purpose of awareness is not to make people donate. Hence, it is not launched when we need donations. Its purpose is to make people passionate about a cause. The dollars that the charity gets should not be the criteria used to measure the effectiveness of awareness.

 

I am sure everyone would have at least seen one of the ads in which a movie star tries to market pan masala or a brand of alcohol. Regardless of the effects of the products, marketing tries to hypnotize the common man with the sugar coating of celebrities to make the common man believe that the product is best for him or her.

Marketing tries to convince the common man that he is getting a value product in return for his money.

 

Awareness tries to portray a cause that needs attention. It merely presents the facts about the needy and does not force anyone to participate. It helps the common man to understand that he has the power to make a difference in the lives of the needy. The transactions do not follow a sale model and hence does not have to involve money.  

 

The cost of such ads with the celebrities cost a fortune. Marketing can afford it because a big piece of the sales revenue pie is spent on marketing.

 

Can charity afford the same?  Absolutely not! Awareness for charity has to be extremely cost-effective. The charity pie is for the poor and the needy. Though it might be extremely difficult not to pick a small piece of the pie for the purpose of overheads, an ideal charity would try its level best to ensure that the piece is the smallest possible.

 

Awareness cannot rely on the glamour of the stars. Awareness relies on the selfless volunteers, who have the power to make a difference at the cost of nothing.

 

Marketing is a fixed-price concept. For example, if an iPOD costs $300, marketing for iPOD is interested in the target audience that is willing to pay $300. It is not interested in a target audience that is willing to pay $100.

 

Awareness is an open ended concept. Awareness tries to encourage any form of help. For example, the help does not have to be the dollars, it could be the prayers for the needy, it could be your time in volunteering, and it could be your talents in furthering the cause. Even if it was the dollars, there is no fixed price concept, every cent counts. The target audience is not restricted. It is everyone and it spans across boundaries.

 

All in all, charity awareness must not be undertaken like a marketing campaign. It must be a cost effective information sharing protocol that uses the potential of the volunteers to the limits.

 

To be continued…

The next two topics:

 

PDC-18: The transformational effect of Awareness: Information and Timing

PDC-19: The transformational effect of Awareness: Rearranging the puzzle

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/

PDC-16: Awareness: The Art of Reading the Minds of the Audience

PDC-16: Charity Awareness: The Art of Reading the Minds of the Audience

 

When a charitable project is mentioned, there are many questions that arise in the minds of the common man. An effective awareness program tries to read the minds of the audience and provides the answers as a part of the information being present in the awareness phase. It must go the extra mile to provide additional information to gain the confidence of the masses.

 

Having openness in the organization for all of its accounts, helps the awareness pitch. Every charity project must envision the common questions that the common man would have been trying to provide answers to it and the awareness phase. An FAQ must be created for different categories; for example for volunteers, for applicants, and so on.

 

When a question arises in the minds of the common man and he gets the answer from the information circulated as part of the awareness, he/she knows that the organization has done its homework in thinking through all these scenarios.

 

Our leaders and elders must fully make use of the opportunities to pass on the awareness about our initiatives to audiences whenever they visit churches and other gatherings. If it is the celebration of important days, awareness must be spread on the importance of the day. One such example of making use of the opportunity to create awareness that I came across in the ICON forum was in an article by Dr. Vinu Mathews summarizing the thoughts of His Grace Philippose Mor Eusebius during HG's visit to their parish.

 

Ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/12661

 

No doubt that the factional litigation has a very negative influence on the charity initiatives of the church. One of the funds that are greatly affected by the factional litigation is the Catholicate day collection (IMHO). Later in the series, we will spend more time on the discussion about this fund. Even though a major part of this fund is used for charity initiatives (grants to mission board, orphanages, social welfare, etc…), there are quite a number of people who think that this fund is a straight pass-through into the pockets of Nariman.

 

While appreciating thirumeni for creating the awareness about the fund, it would have been great if we could have gone the extra mile towards reading the minds of the audience and present more facts to reduce the negative influence of the litigation. Let's focus on one sentence in the article of Dr. Vinu Mathews quoting HGs words

 

"Every penny collected as Catholicate day cover collection from members of Church is exclusively used for sustenance and developmental activities of the Church. 'Not even one naya paise is used for conductance of factional litigation in the Church'."

 

Say, if one of the listeners in that room had a pre notion that the Catholicate day cover collection is the cover collection for Nariman , could the person after listening to HGs comments be thinking "Ok, if it does not go from the Catholicate day cover collection, where does the money come for paying Nariman a fortune?"

 

If HG had made one more sentence that would answer this question, we would have mastered the art of reading the minds of the audience.

 

It's key to the success of a charitable project to spend the time and effort to analyze the minds of the audience and prepare information to answer the questions in the minds of the common man.

 

To be continued…

The next two topics:

 

PDC-17: Awareness: The fine line between Awareness and Marketing

PDC-18: The transformational effect of Awareness: Information and Timing

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin , TX

PDC-15: Awareness: The Instant lottery Vs the Insurance Premium

PDC-15: Awareness: The Instant lottery Vs the Insurance Premium

 

As patience becomes an extinct virtue, we have become addicted to instant results. As our expectations for instant results kept increasing, the world has adapted; new innovations kept emerging to give us what we needed. One such innovation is the instant lottery. You scratch a lottery and find the results immediately.

 

In addition, as we were taught to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, we want to safeguard ourselves from the unexpected tragedies. This need gave the birth to the multibillion insurance industries. We take insurance as a protection for the unexpected tragedy. We pay a small premium every month. We do not get a pay back immediately for the premiums we pay every month, but we are protected by the promise of a huge pay back if the unexpected happens.

 

Anytime our Achen at St. Gregorios Church Austin talks about prayer, he uses the analogy of the instant lottery and the insurance. He says: prayer is not like an instant lottery. We must not expect immediate results just as you would expect the result by scratching the instant lottery. It has to be like the insurance premium. You have to continuously pray so that you will have the grace of the Holy Father when you need it.

 

The same analogy holds good for charity awareness. Awareness must not be considered as an instant lottery. We must not expect instant results.

 

Let's look at how the instant lottery model would look like in the charity landscape. Consider a new project being launched and assume that the common man has not heard about such a project before. A person from a charitable organization would talk about the project and before the common man takes his next breath, a request for donations is made. The organization needs immediate return of its investment in the form of dollars that it had spent on the persons talk to the group of people.

 

Awareness is like the insurance premiums that we make. It has to be a continuous effort. The organization never knows when it might need it to protect it from the negative influence and frauds of the poorly managed charities.

 

Charity Awareness is a continuous process and must be separated from the collection phase

 

The purpose of awareness is not to convince people to donate dollars; its purpose is to educate people about the need. Regardless of the need for funds, charity projects must heavily invest on awareness. Our people must be in tune with the initiatives. The Awareness about our charity initiatives must pass on from people to people, friends to friends, parents to children, and generations to generations.

 

To be continued…

 

The next two topics:

 

PDC-16: Awareness: The art of reading the mind of the audience

PDC-17: Awareness: The fine line between Awareness and Marketing

 

Thanks,

Rajesh Vargheese

St. Gregorios Orthodox Church, Austin , TX