Social Marketing in NPOs: Problems of Partnerships with Commercial Sector

With the development of "Marketing 3.0" concept, marketing specialists have increasingly begun to argue on integrity of a brand, its values and impact on soul and human emotions. Nowadays, buying goods of a certain company, a person supports the brand, and hence the company's policy, for example, regarding environmental protection or protection of third world countries. This led to increased interest in the image of a "socially responsible business" and stimulated the development of NPOs and commercial sector joint programs. Although in Russia this trend is also noticeable, business and NPOs collaborations still are not sufficiently productive. Overall, understanding of charity by the society, as well as by the representatives of business, is at the initial level: for them charity does not appear to be a sphere that can stimulate fundamental changes in the society. For the representatives of business co-operation with NPOs seems to be a waste of money - not a tool for building a strong brand and achievement of business goals. The graduation paper is aimed on the study of effectiveness of methods and tools of social marketing applied by NPOs in the context of cooperation with the commercial sector. To achieve work’s goals and objectives, a qualitative study in the form of in-depth interviews with employees of Russian NPOs, working on cooperation with business, was conducted. During the research, the main methods of working with corporate donors and partners, as well as the problems faced by fundraisers, were studied. The results of the research have showed that nowadays principles of social marketing are not applied in the overwhelming majority of NPOs in Russia, which is reflected in the mistakes that NPOs make when building a marketing strategy. Based on the data received, recommendations for adjustment the NPOs marketing strategies were formulated.