Strategic stakeholder orientations and performance consequences—a case of private nonprofit performing arts in the US

• This paper borrows a market orientation perspective in considering how organizations behave toward stakeholders and the implications on performance in the institutional performing arts environment. To investigate the relationship between stakeholder orientations and organizational performance, both interviews and a survey instrument were used. Using nonprofit performing arts organizations in three metropolitan areas of Northwestern US as a sample frame, primary data was collected from leading directors of these organizations. The results generally indicate a positive relationship between stakeholder orientation and organizational performance. Complex relationships between dimensions of stakeholder orientation and performance consequences were also observed.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Weathering the storm: best practices for nonprofits in crisis

• Nonprofit organizations are as susceptible to crisis as any organization as exemplified by Livestrong's attempts to outlive Lance Armstrong's downfall and Planned Parenthood (PP) overcoming Susan G. Komen for the Cure's (SGK) policy to defund organizations under investigation. The public battles held on social media during crises such as these have forced organizations onto new battlegrounds. Supporters for each of these nonprofits proudly shared their thoughts via tweets (e.g. #IstandwithPP) and status updates, as the organizations raced to control the situation. PP had tweeted SGK's policy change creating a bevy of support while sending SGK into a reversal that is still costing racers. Surveys were distributed following Armstrong's performance-enhancing drug use confession and SGK's funding policy announcement to determine attitudes toward giving after organizational crisis. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to assess the strength of attitude, social norms, and perceived behavioral control on the intent to donate to these organizations. The use of TPB expands nonprofit marketing horizons by helping better understand stakeholder intentions and their causes. On the basis of the findings, best practices for nonprofits handling crisis were identified. In particular, organizations need to know their target audiences, know what will make supporters remain, look at crises as opportunities for renewal, be honest, and apologize when appropriate.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aligning adoption messages with audiences' priorities: A mixed-methods study of the diffusion of enterprise architecture among the US state governments

Prior studies on the diffusion of complex Information Systems (IS) innovations have leaned on the rhetoric of persuasion perspective to formulate rhetorical strategies that can persuade adopters to engage in adoption behaviors. Yet, most of them ignore the shifting priorities and changing identity of the audience. To address this gap, we extend the perspective by examining how innovators need to evolve the adoption message of an innovation by aligning it with the audience's diverse and shifting priorities (and related identities). We trace rhetorical changes that the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) introduced to promote the diffusion of enterprise architecture (EA) between 2000 and 2012 among the 50 US states. We conduct a mixed methods analysis: first we qualitatively discern changes in the content of the rhetoric (message change); then we use a latent semantic analysis to measure the frame resonance between NASCIO's shifting rhetoric and the audience's changing priorities (alignment with audience priorities). Our findings highlight the importance of: 1) frame ambiguity that renders a complex IS innovation appealing to varied audiences over its diffusion trajectory; and 2) listening to the community members' priorities and aligning the adoption message with their dominant beliefs. Our analysis posits the rhetoric of identification as a complementary lens to account for the co-evolution of shared priorities and identity alignments between innovators and their audiences.     

Stakeholder communication in service implementation networks: expanding relationship management theory to the nonprofit sector through organizational network analysis

• Nonprofits increasingly participate in government-funded service implementation networks (SINs). However, extant research does not explore how organizations might strategically tailor communication to different stakeholder groups or use different communication tools for management. Stakeholders are not a monolithic group, and communicating with stakeholders within SINs is hypothesized to involve different forms of communication than communicating with stakeholders outside of the network. In this paper, relationship management theory is used to examine strategic communication with stakeholder groups within and outside of SINs. Both traditional and emergent (e.g., social media) forms of communication are examined. Survey and interview data on communication within and outside communication networks are analyzed using organizational network analysis techniques. The findings indicate strategic communication in the network differs from strategic communication with stakeholders outside the network. Within the network, organizations place varying emphasis on the use of traditional and emergent forms of communication for management, implying nonprofit managers funded under government grants continue to rely on face-to-face and phone communication and have yet to adopt emerging communication strategies to assist in the management of their programs with their partner organizations.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Campus cultural and artistic activity effects evaluation model: a study of universities in Taiwan

• This research examines three types of universities in Taiwan to discuss the factors that influence campus cultural and artistic activity effects and establishes a structure model. In this research, university students are the target group for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) that regard cultural and artistic activities as products or services. The study used message contact, emotion, cognition, message evaluation, and attitude toward the activity as the influence factors. The relationships among these factors along with student participatory intention, participation behavior, and activity effect were then explored. The results show that each influence factor affects student willingness to participate, which leads to different levels of participation and effectiveness. Moreover, there are hierarchical relationships between the influence factors and effects.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Virtual stewardship in the age of new media: have nonprofit organizations' moved beyond Web 1.0 strategies?

• Stewardship has been identified as an important relationship cultivation strategy. The four dimensions of stewardship—reciprocity, responsibility, reporting, and relationship nurturing—consist of one‐way and two‐way messaging strategies that can be carried out in a variety of manners on the Internet using both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technologies. Through a content analysis of the Nonprofit Times 100 organizations, this study found that nonprofit organizations overwhelmingly prefer to use their website to cultivate relationships with their stakeholders with stewardship strategies. Despite the hype of social media technologies, including Facebook, there remain many significant questions and obstacles to seeing nonprofits truly embrace social media communication.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring what nonprofit branding can learn from contemporary art

• As more and more nonprofits seek to refashion themselves as brands, they tend to take inspiration from for‐profit organizations. Another domain that has had similar purposes to those of nonprofit branding for many years is contemporary art. This is an exploratory paper that looks at a recent trend in art, “message art,” and how it might inform nonprofit branding. Message art deals with many social issues that drive major nonprofits today including everything from pro‐environment causes to anti‐segregationist issues. This paper has two purposes: (1) to call attention to message art among nonprofit brand managers and (2) to explain how they can use this art. Message art is useful to the extent that it calls attention to new ideological trends and often provides selected pieces of art that can serve as exemplars of brand essence for relevant causes. Results are provided from a small, qualitative study of women's feelings about selected examples of feminist art. Two pieces of art drew the most positive responses. One piece, “Egyptian Rocket Goddess,” is felt to be a harbinger of Third Wave Feminism. Another piece, “Blessed Art Thou Among Women,” is felt to be an effective source of inspiration and direction for feminist organizations, which focus on mother–daughter relationships.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Marketing churches on the Internet: an analysis of the dialogic potential of Christian web sites

• The Internet has affected every aspect of society, and religion is no exception. Nearly 28 million Americans use the Internet to supplement their spiritual life by visiting Web sites to communicate with their churches and other congregation members. Online communication with religious organizations can be enhanced by the incorporation of five dialogic loop principles that foster relationship growth. Through a content analysis of randomly sampled Church Web sites from a national database, this study found that Christian churches were laggards in terms of creating an interactive environment for church-goers.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coming soon to a live theater near you: performing arts trailers as paratexts

• Dramatic changes in technology present not‐for‐profit performing arts organizations with both opportunities and challenges for engaging and attracting audiences. With its emphasis on deep engagement with a select group of users, the Internet “long tail” presents a natural application for this sector; however, performing arts groups must grapple with developing the most optimal web‐based content for their particular organizational needs. This paper analyzes the use of web‐based video offerings used currently by professional symphony orchestras in the United States and Canada. One third of observed websites included video of some kind (including a wide‐array of content), while roughly half of that number focused on promoting concerts scheduled for the future. An even smaller number have embraced the practice of presenting performing arts previews (after the longstanding tradition within the film industry) as a purposeful kind of paratext, including representational elements of the work, the performers, and the overall concert context. A conceptual frame of video types is presented and discussed, with particular attention to the preview format. The research on film previews as an analogous vehicle is evaluated including the tradition of telling the incomplete story, while also promoting the movie. The research on paratexts in relation to books, theatre programs, and film trailers is reviewed and the case is made for web‐based performing arts previews as an emergent genre within the paratext conceptual frame. Specific video examples currently in use illustrate theory and concepts presented in the paper.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determinants of charitable donation intentions: a structural equation model

• Currently charities have to depend more on individual donors and less on the government for funding. Hence, understanding the individual donor and what motivates them to contribute to charities is something, which has been of increasing interest to nonprofit marketers. In this article, a path model for the charitable donation process of a religious individual is developed and tested. The variables that are used in the model are religiosity, attitude towards helping others (AHO), attitude towards charitable organizations (ACO), attitude towards the advertisement (Attad) and behavioral intentions (BI). The results suggest that AHO by itself does not cause BI. Altruistic people need to be targeted with an appropriate advertisement message. Since religiosity is an important causal variable for AHO, segmenting and targeting individuals who are religious would be pertinent. Attempts to build favorable ACO would also be worthwhile.
• Religiosity
• Charitable donation intentions
• Charity advertisements.
• Path model for predicting intentions to donate.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health nonprofits online: the use of frames and stewardship strategies to increase stakeholder involvement

• This study examines connections between the conceptual frameworks of compassion fatigue (burnout toward social issues) and related stewardship strategies that are used as a form of best practices to address the issue of compassion fatigue. A content analysis of 117 health nonprofit websites (457 web pages) investigates how nonprofit health organization websites are framing their communication to various stakeholders and how the strategies of stewardship are employed online. Findings indicate that although health nonprofits are using positive frames and multiple stewardship strategies, more could be done by nonprofit marketing practitioners to facilitate positive, long-term relationships with stakeholders in an environment of increased communication and compassion fatigue.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward an understanding of thrift store donors

• An increasing number of service organizations are developing thrift stores (or, second hand stores, charity shops) to raise resources to support their mission‐directed activities. Such stores seek donated merchandize…sell it …and use the proceeds to support their service efforts. The purpose of the study is to examine the processes by which thrift store donors: (a) determine that donation of pre‐owned merchandize is desirable, (b) get information about competing donation outlets, and (c) select which organization(s) are appropriate for their particular merchandize donation. A web survey was administered to assess these processes. The results will allow organizations to critically evaluate their existing thrift store practices against donor preferences in the interest of continuous improvement.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding why people do not give: strategic funding concerns for AIDS‐related nonprofits

• In this increasingly competitive environment for the individual donor's time and money, it is especially important for AIDS‐related nonprofits to understand why people choose not to give. Voluntary donations to organizations serving persons with HIV/AIDS could be negatively influenced by the social stigma that continues to be associated with the disease. Using the empathy‐altruism hypothesis from social psychology, the impact of gender, homosexuality, promiscuity, and drug use on donor cognitive situational empathy, emotional situational empathy, and altruism is examined. The findings have significant implications for nonprofits. Understanding the impact of these behaviors on giving is a first step in gauging the magnitude of challenges that AIDS‐related nonprofits may face in fund‐raising activities. Additionally, this information should be invaluable in the development of educational and/or promotional strategies to increase private sector support. Finally, initiatives in communication and marketing strategy are discussed to improve fund‐raising efforts.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Framing environmental advocacy: a study of 30 years of advertising in National Geographic Magazine

To compete with the flood of environmental messaging from corporations and industry groups, environmental advocacy groups must adopt the most effective communication strategies to connect with audiences and motivate their behaviors toward environmental issues. This study examines the framing of environmental messages by advocacy groups in contrast to messages by other organizations in 30 years of environmental advertising in National Geographic Magazine. It measures changes in the degree to which environmental actions were framed in terms of gain for the environment versus avoidance of ecological loss and in terms of impacting current generations versus future generation. In addition, the study examined behavioral frames of taking less (conservation) versus doing more (recycling, volunteering, etc.) in environmental advocacy groups' advertising to better understand the kinds of actions the organizations are promoting. The organizations' strategies to engage audience behavior were also measured through message focus on reader behavior versus organization behavior. Findings suggest that frames engaged by environmental advocacy organizations have remained fairly stable over time but may not represent the best practices for message creation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationships among levels of government support,marketing activities,and financial health of nonprofit performing arts organizations

• This exploratory study researches and analyzes the empirical effects of financial levels of government support and marketing practices on the financial health of nonprofit performing arts organizations. Declining government subsidies and increasing competition from non-traditional sources have presented these organizations with unique opportunities and challenges that call for a market-centered, as well as an art-centered approach. Financial health is critical for the long-term success of a nonprofit performing arts organization. Few empirical studies have examined the interrelationships between these key variables. This study analyzes a sample of 63 American professional symphony orchestras employing 20 years of data. The correlations among financial levels of government support and marketing activities were positive and significant, the correlations among levels of government support and financial health were negative and significant, and the correlations between levels of marketing activity and financial health were negative and varied in significance. Causal analyses were less conclusive, but significant causal relationships were found for large symphony orchestras, indicating that segmentation research may be warranted. Implications and opportunities for future research are presented which have potential application for government agencies, academic researchers, and arts organization managers, boards of directors, and donors.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How international nonprofits build brand equity

This paper describes an empirical model of brand equity for international nonprofit organizations and offers nonprofit managers suggestions for the management of their brands. The main areas of interest include:

• A review of the importance of branding for nonprofits, the lack of a brand equity models specifically for nonprofits, and the key differences between for‐profits and nonprofits.
• A proposed nonprofit brand equity model, based on a grounded theory and system dynamics approach.
• A series of specific managerial recommendations, for building nonprofit brand equity.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving the effectiveness of prosocial advertising campaigns: Message strategies to increase support from less empathic individuals

Individuals with low levels of trait empathy are hesitant when it comes to helping people in need. This makes it difficult for nonprofit organizations to gain their support for prosocial advertising campaigns. An experimental study among 214 Swiss students examines what message strategies nonprofit organizations should use to increase support from less empathic people. We investigate the effects of depicting daily life situations where people in need are happy versus sad (visual message strategies) and the effects of presenting statistical versus anecdotal evidence (verbal message strategies). The results show that less empathic individuals hold more favorable attitudes toward prosocial advertising campaigns when exposed to sad daily life images and anecdotal evidence. Moreover, attitudes mediate message effects on less empathic individuals' intentions to comply with a prosocial advocacy. Overall, the study suggests that nonprofit organizations should prefer sad over happy daily life images and anecdotal over statistical evidence in prosocial advertising campaigns.     

Segmenting nonprofit stakeholders to enable successful relationship marketing: a review

• When establishing relationships with stakeholders, nonprofit organizations must define appropriate target groups to allocate resources purposively. This paper explicates that link by reviewing the literature on nonprofit stakeholder segmentation and by discussing whether stakeholder segmentation is perceived as a prerequisite of successful relationship marketing by nonprofit researchers.
• We develop two conceptual dimensions of nonprofit stakeholder segmentation: the stakeholders segmented and the segmentation criteria used. A systematic database and journal search yielded 53 papers, categorized according to these two dimensions. The studies are described briefly, and the relevance of the relationship marketing concept is examined and discussed. Several research gaps emerge from this review, leading to propositions for further research.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning and relationship orientation: an empirical examination in European museums

• The purpose of this paper is to assess the interrelations between learning orientation, innovation strategy, relationship orientation and economic and social performance in the management of cultural organizations such as museums. We first provide a review of the literature addressing the main constructs involved in the research: learning orientation, innovation, relationship orientation and performance, and we detail the model's hypotheses reflecting the interrelations amongst the proposed variables. Building on extensive literature, a model is developed and empirically tested using survey data collected from 491 European museums in Spain, France, Italy and the UK. Data are analysed through structural equation modelling. In the present study, evidence is found to support the positive and significant link between learning orientation and internal (organizational innovation) as well as external (relationship orientation) changes in museums. Further, we find that organizational innovation and relationship orientation aid the introduction of greater technological developments in these organizations. We also find evidence to support the idea that learning orientation, innovation strategy and relationship orientation impact the economic and social performance of museums. Findings clearly show that achieving organizational objectives through learning processes necessarily entails the introduction of internal changes—innovation—and external relationships—relationship orientation.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.