Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 11: 89–91 (2006)Published online in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.50

Guest editorial

Advances in nonprofit marketing

Welcome to this Special Issue, which contains six articlesspecifically selected for their exceptional contribution to theadvancement of knowledge and the stimulation of further researchin the nonprofit marketing field. Early versions of five of the sixpapers included in the Special Issue were originally presented eitherat the Fourth International Colloquium on Nonprofit, Social and ArtsMarketing held in London in 2004 or at the Inaugural AustralasianNonprofit and Social Marketing Conference hosted in 2004 by theAustralian National University in Canberra. A second AustralasianNonprofit and Social Marketing Conference took place inMelbourne in 2005; a third is scheduled to occur at the Universityof Newcastle in Australia in 2006. This (now annual) Conference isclearly set to become a primary vehicle for the dissemination ofnonprofit research findings arising in the Australasian region. Thecurrent Special Issue is nevertheless truly international in scope andhas papers from authors based in the United States, Portugal,Belgium, Australia and Great Britain, underscoring the fact thatserious research in nonprofit marketing is now being conductedthroughout the world. A wide variety of topics are covered by thearticles appearing in this Special Issue, in line with the broadeningdiversity of contemporary research in the nonprofit marketingdomain.

The first paper is by Sandra Jones and Neville Owen of the Centrefor Health Behaviour and Communication Research at the Universityof Wollongong in Australia and concerns the efficacy of using fearappeals to encourage women to attend breast cancer screeningsessions. Unintended consequences of high-threat communicationsin this regard, Jones and Owen note, include the inculcation ofexcessively negative emotional reactions and unwarranted greaterperceived susceptibility among young women outside the targetaudience. In Australia (and most other countries) mammographicscreening is only recommended for women aged 50 or above.This paper is followed by a fascinating article by Fred Jacobs andNicholas Marudas that examines the question of whether a one percent increase in a charity’s fundraising expenditure is likely to leadto a more than one per cent rise in net donations. One hundredUnited States nonprofit organisations were investigated, of which24 seemingly spent ‘excessive’ amounts on fundraising (in the sense

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., May 2006

that a marginal increase in spending on fundraising led toproportionately low, in some cases even negative, returns). Only18 of the organisations could expect increasing returns to marginalexpansions of fundraising expenditures. The critical implication ofthese findings is that many non-profits underspend or overspend onfundraising. Hence, charities need to monitor carefully the linkbetween the commitment of monetary resources to fundraising andconsequent donations, and cease additional investment when a oneper cent rise in fundraising expenditure begins to result in exactly a1 per cent increase in donations.

Helen Stride’s contribution argues that, because charitiestypically possess strong organisational values which are, in herwords, ‘non-negotiable’, the branding of a charity is likely to involvethe systematic and focused projection of the organisation’s values tothe outside world. This allegedly differs from the situationpertaining to the branding of most commercial organisations,which often seeks to reflect or simply explain an enterprise’s valuesas opposed to promulgating them. Academic interest in the conceptof charity branding and the branding of campaigning bodies hasrisen sharply in the last decade (for details see Volume 10 number 2of this journal) and Stride’s work will certainly enliven debate in thearea. ‘Fair trade’ is another highly topical issue that has received alarge amount of governmental and media attention in recent years.The timely study appearing in this Special Issue by Patrick DePelsmacker, Wim Janssens, Ellen Sterckx and Caroline Mielants offair trade beliefs, attitudes and buying behaviour among Belgianconsumers found that although members of the Belgian publicgenerally supported the fair trade movement, there was a wide-spread demand for substantially more and better information on fairtrade products. Concerns were expressed about the extent of theavailability of fair trade products in regular supermarkets and abouttheir price. De Pelsmacker and his colleagues identify the types ofperson most likely to buy fair trade items and their motives formaking a purchase. The authors make a number of recommenda-tions regarding the best methods for marketing fair trade goods.

Madalena Abreu’s paper deals with a sparsely researched matterin non-profit and voluntary sector marketing, namely the promotionof a religious organisation in an environment where greater religiousfreedom has presented the population with more and more optionswhere religious activities are concerned. She observes that religiousactivities (e.g. pilgrimages or attendance at services) now competewith a plethora of sports and entertainment events. It follows thatmarketing is today a vital function for religious organisations. Abreuexplores these issues in the context of a Catholic shrine in Portugal(i.e. the sanctuary of Fatima), comparing the brand position ofthe shrine as defined by the organisation’s management andthe brand image of the shrine as perceived by its visitors.Interestingly, a number of significant differences in assumptionsand perceptions emerged, some of which have substantial implica

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., May 2006

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tions for the marketing management of the organisation. The paperby Debra Grace and Deborah Griffin develops several researchpropositions relating to ostentatious rather than altruistic giving.Grace and Griffin use the term ‘conspicuous donation behaviour’ toconceptualise acts of giving that are accompanied by the purchaseof empathy ribbons, red noses, or other tangible pieces of evidencewhich enable people to display overtly the fact that they havesupported a good cause. Grace and Griffin draw a parallel betweenthe well-established economic theory of ‘conspicuous consump-tion’ and the more recent idea of ‘conspicuous compassion’. On thebasis of a literature review the authors posit that a person’s level ofinvolvement with donating to charities, community values,susceptibility to social influence, age, and tendency to adjustindividual behaviour according to social cues, all have the potentialto affect the degree to which the individual engages in conspicuousgiving.

Roger BennettCentre for Research in MarketingLondon Metropolitan University

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., May 2006

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