Agent Provocateur - an alternative view of positioning from Professional Fundraiser

Current theory in NGOs is certain that treating aid recipients as clients who need tools of empowerment is far more effective and acceptable than treating them as ‘the white man’s burden.’ Fine, this makes sense. And of course, no one has the right to tell an organisation that its strategy or proposition is wrong. But they can choose not to support it.

Experience has shown that more people donate more money when their sense of mercy or pity is evoked rather than when their sense of injustice is provoked. Fact.

The second part of the problem is the idea of brand consistency. In a corporate, having one brand construct is sacrosanct. If my mission is to provide “performance engineering”, then I say that in every communication to every external audience (even if internally – and to my shareholders – I add the word ‘profitable’ to the two words above).

But charities have a much more complex group of stakeholders. Beneficiaries want one thing, programme deliverers want another, campaigners and lobbyists want another, and then – often at the bottom of the list – donors want something else. So a ‘one size fits all’ brand architecture tends to be a lowest common denominator construct, and all too often, it’s the fundraisers who lose out.

The rest of the article can be read online at the Professional Fundraiser website.