Thesis on "Boys and Girls Club of America"

Thesis 15 pages (5025 words) Sources: 8 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Marketing Management of Boy's And Girl's Clubs

Marketing Management Analysis and of Boy's and Girls' Clubs

The Boys and Girls' Clubs of America is facing several significant challenges to its growth in the midst of challenging economic times. The first is the need to continually grow its base of donors. Through relationship marketing and due to the transparency and ethical guidelines the organization adheres to, donors find value in providing the Club with donations. They believe the results reported are representative of actual performance of the non-profit, which is a key strength to continual revenue growth (Bryce, 2007). Trust in the Boys and Girls' Clubs of America is directly tied to their ability to gain funds for expansion of after-school programs and continued investment in centers. The second challenge is the continuing recruitment of new members nationally. The third challenge is to quantify and measure the contributions of the organization over time as quantifiable evidence of results. This research, accumulated over time, forms the foundation of trust for the organization. To effectively address all of these challenges a coordinated strategic market plan is required, executed through consistent marketing management. The intent of this analysis is to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of existing marketing management strategies and recommend improvements. At the center of this assessment is the need to continually stay consistent with the unique value proposition of the Clubs. Nonprofit organizations need to be cognizant of how their unique value propositions (Boschee, 2004) directly impact their brands and as a result their ability to add value to those they serve. One of the most important factors in supporting the unique value proposition of any non-profit institution is the ability to exceed expectations in relationships with donors and those served (Arnett, German, Hunt, 2003).

Assessing the Socioeconomic Conditions Boys' and Girl's Club Operates in

One of the most significant strengths of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America is their extensive research into how after-school programs dramatically reduce crime, drug use and truancy in at-risk children. This strength from a marketing management perspective takes on added relevance as more parents are dual wage earners than ever before (Polk, 2008) and relying on after-school programs for the care of their children. This is the primary customer segment that the Clubs have successfully concentrated on, yet the dynamics of families are changing fast which poses a challenge for the organization. An assessment of the Club's speed of new services development and recommendations for increasing this process' effectiveness is provided later in this report. One of the most significant changes in the Club's served base of families is the rapid increase in single parent households. The needs of children in single-parent families are often exacerbated by the low income of the single parent. According to the 2007 Annual Report, 71% of Boys and Girls Club members live in urban areas, 56% are from minority families, 42% earn less than $22,000 a year and over half (53%) are from single parent families. In addition 4.8 million youth are served by the programs with 66% being younger than 12 years old. 35% are Caucasian, 31% are African-American and 21% are Hispanic or Latino, 7% are multiracial and 3% are Asian and Native American.

With the majority of members being from single-parent families, under 12 years of age, and predominantly living in urban areas (71%) marketing strategies need to have an alluring enough message to get children interested in joining. There's also the parallel marketing strategy to parents that the Clubs are safe havens for their children while many are working two or more jobs to make ends meet. The third marketing strategy is one of advocacy to donors and government agencies who can assist the Clubs with funding, support and promotion.

Assessing the socioeconomic conditions that the Clubs operate on serves as the catalyst of the organizations' mission. To the extent a non-profit's mission is seen as fulfilling an unmet need in the community is the extent to which it is seen as relevant (Arnett, German, Hunt, 2003). The Clubs define their mission as "To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens." With high school drop-out rates at nearly 30% (Montmarquette, Viennot-Briot, Dagenais, 2007) and gang recruitment commonplace with children as young as 13 (Bohnert, Richards, Kohl, Randall, 2009) the Club derives strength and Club-wide commitment to its objectives from its intensive socioeconomic and market research expertise. The fact that the majority of crime in these age groups occur between 3 and 8pm (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1995) is also a catalyst for the Clubs to seek donors and advocacy so programs can continue to be funded.

What make marketing management difficult are broader economic forces that non-profit organizations have no control over. Figure 1, Scouting & Youth Organizations Revenue Growth shows the 3% reduction in contribution growth in 2009 for example.

Figure 1

Scouting & Youth Non-Profit Organizations

Revenue Growth Rate, 2005 -- 2009

Revenue generated from donations, grants and government agency support has also been flat over the last five years, from 2005 to 2009, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2:

Scouting & Youth Non-Profit Organizations

Revenue, 2005 -- 2009

Taking into account the socioeconomic factors brings an accentuated level of urgency to making the marketing strategies in place today more effective, and augmenting them with the recommendations in this analysis. In addition to the level of donations and grants being relatively flat, there are competing non-profit organizations including the YMCA and Boy Scouts of America which generate significantly greater donation levels, despite Boys and Girls Clubs of America having comparable awareness levels. Figure 3, Scouting and Youth Non-Profit Organizations Market Shares, 2009 illustrates the competitive position of Boys and Girls Clubs relative to competing non-profits.

Figure 3: 2009 Scouting & Youth Non-Profit Organizations Market Share

Scouting & Youth Non-Profit Organizations

Market Share

YMCA of the U.S.A.

26.5%

Boy Scouts of America

2.5%

Boys & Girls Clubs of America

1.1%

Girl Scouts of the United States of America

0.7%

Other

69.2%

Totals: 100.0%

No single marketing strategy or initiative can address the breadth of challenges the Club is dealing with today. What is needed is a multifaceted approach to defining marketing management objectives in the midst of a very challenging economic climate, while still preserving the passion of service and results that the Club has built its brand reputation on. The following section is an assessment of current marketing management.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Boys & Girls Club Marketing Programs

It's critically important to define the best possible benchmarks and levels of performance for evaluating the Club's marketing effectiveness to this point. Evaluating the Club's marketing effectiveness begins with an assessment of how effectively each of the three key marketing strategies is being executed today. Starting with the most critical, which is the managing of corporate giving programs, the company has not achieved the level of performance it is capable of. As of the latest annual report, 16% of total giving is from corporations. Instead of having an integrated marketing communications strategy (IMC) in place for this segment, the Club relies extensively on the fact-based approach it has grown into its core strength with its intensive research efforts. While this has been successful in positioning the unique value proposition (Boschee, 2004) into the corporate community which thrives on quantitative and fact-based research, it has not been effective in fully using all available marketing channels into this key segment. Absent for example are more advanced approaches to creating online collaboration with this top donor category. There is for example no Corporate Intranet for the company to use for organizing communications to their most critical donor base. It would be wise to have a global Intranet that would give the organization the opportunity to share messages and update relatively quickly through this type of electronic platform. Goodwill does this for example with their corporate client and has been able to generate significantly higher levels of donations as a result (Gincel, 2006). Clearly having an Intranet to connect with corporate donors would be a significant competitive advantage relative to other nonprofits vying for donations.

There is also no concerted approach to managing the experiences that top donor corporations have or the managing of those strategies on an individualized account basis. From the tax advantages of making contributions to the fulfillment of their own corporate missions to be a positive influence in their communities, corporate accounts need to be tracked on a relationship instead of transaction basis (Polonsky, Sargeant, 2007). What emerges for an analysis of this specific area of corporate donor and advocacy strategy is significant room for improvement in the area of client relationship management. The use of client relationship management as the foundation for creating more trust and ownership on the part of donors is a strategy that the Club needs to consider. The lessons learned from a symphony on attracting and growing donors… READ MORE

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