Last week (coincidentally while on my way to a conference on healthcare and emerging technology), I heard James Unland, editor of the Journal of Health Care Finance, talking on NPR about whether or not it was appropriate for hospitals to be spending money on advertising. As a consultant to healthcare organizations—many of whom have successfully and responsibly used marketing to improve inaccurate perceptions, attract funding and compete for patients—I was a bit surprised by the naiveté of Mr. Unland. Non-profit organizations or not, hospitals who do business in a free market economy (as they do here in this US) must promote themselves to survive. Put another way, hospitals and other healthcare organizations must be financially sound to fulfill their mission to serve their patients. And marketing and advertising is an essential component to their success.

His interview reminded me of another presentation I heard just a couple of weeks ago at the Washington State Non-Profit Conference. There, social entrepreneur and Harvard Business Review blogger Dan Pallotta eloquently argued for new standards by which we judge non-profit organizations. His argument was that our collective perception that non-profits should operate from a different rule book, one that prohibits them from adequately competing with their corporate counterparts by spending and investing in marketing and other types of administrative costs, limits their ability to do good in the world. His theory is that this stems from our Puritanical need justify our greed and desire for profit with charitable efforts, bi-furcating our work into that which is for good and that which is for evil.

Mr. Pollatta’s argument, one that I support, is that it doesn’t have to be so black and white. Organizations that do good can also leverage the success-promoting principles of for-profit enterprises to increase their capacity to fulfill their mission. Should we hold hospitals to a different standard than their insurance plan or pharmaceutical counterparts? I don’t think so.

-Briana Marrah

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I’m a member of BEAN, a scrappy young professional network constantly innovating new ways to make a positive difference in the community. We donate our time and effort to engage an often fickle demographic, 25-35 year olds, and as any thrifty club or nonprofit can relate,  it’s often a challenge to get the dollar bills flowing.

This year, we  learned about a local nonprofit called Roses and Rosemary that  supplies medication to HIV-positive orphans in Africa and decided to support their cause. With absolutely no budget, we focused our efforts on a fun event—a bachelor/bachelorette auction. Yes, we put ourselves on the auction block for a good cause and only used the web (because it’s free!) to spread the word.

The results?

We sold out 200 tickets within the first 20 minutes of opening the door and ended up raising $16,000. Not too shabby for $0 in marketing, no fancy ads, no press release—just a group of kids with a fun idea, some excitement and a lap top.

Here were our tactics, which can be easily mimicked by any nonprofit:

1. Created a Facebook event and sent out invites.
2. We each posted the event to our personal profiles periodically and talked it up. (To do this: A. Click the “share” link on the event page. B. Write a comment. C. Click the “share” button)
3. Created fan pages for each bachelor/ette. See our example.
4. Created a landing page with bios to generate excitement.
5. Sent out reminder messages to people who accepted the Facebook event invitation.
6. Posted on other free websites such as IloveSeattle.org, Craigslist, and Twitter.

Kudos to the TGAL committee, Roses and Rosemary and everyone who played a part!

–Bianca Abate

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