ASPECTOS MERCANTILES
OTRAS FORMAS DE RETRIBUCIÓN
TSO supporters and members may well not only be involved with the organisation through campaigning, they may also (or alternatively) be financial donors to the group.
Respondents suggested that there were potential benefits to both campaigning and fundraising through the interrelation of the two organisational functions.
Involvement of organisational supporters in campaigning was perceived to help to integrate those supporters into the organisation, potentially encouraging them to become financial supporters. But also, since they clearly have an interest in the work of the organisation, financial supporters may also be interested in getting involved with the organisation’s campaigning work more actively, promoting the organisation’s
campaigning activities. The two following examples both highlight how organisations perceived campaigning and fundraising to be interrelated:
‘”If you’ve got people who are willing to donate money then they are a captive audience and they’re already going to be on your side, and you should attempt to get them to take action as well, and vice versa, so I think that fundraising and campaigning can be incredibly mutually beneficial if done in the right way.”
(Interview 2)
“…our supporters are giving money to the charity because they believe in what we do, and part of that is the campaigning side. So obviously they are going to have
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more of an affinity with some of those issues which we are working on, so of course we should be getting them involved in what we are doing.”
(Interview 3)
The potential relation of fundraising to campaigning is represented in figure 7 below.
Although, as indicated above, it was suggested that this might be a very profitable way of linking fundraising to campaigning, it may be hypothesised that there may also be risks in attempting to develop such a relationship. In some cases financial supporters may not wish to be involved with actions; as a result, it will be important to ensure that these supporters are not overburdened with actions which may affect their willingness to support the organisation financially.
Fig 7: The potential inter-relationship between fundraising and campaigning
These results support previous research which similarly highlights the need for
integration of fundraising and campaigning. One recent piece of research found that the majority of donors give because of being ‘inspired’ by the organisation, or because of a sense of ‘belonging’ with other supporters (Lawson and Ruderham, 2009). The authors suggest that:
Fundraising Campaigning
Financial supporters may be interested in becoming involved in campaign work
Campaigning helps integrate campaigners into the organisation, and so encourages financial giving
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“giving is increasingly about donors wanting to be inspired by a charity or wanting to be part of a movement rather than being about the core emotions of guilt or pity.”
Lawson and Ruderham (2009, p380)
Their results (reflected by the results of this project) suggest that integration of
campaigning and fundraising can help to develop supporters, and increase their value to the organisation as both donors and campaigners (Lawson and Ruderham, 2009).
3. Conclusion
This chapter has overviewed how the organisational structures and functions of campaign groups affect the ways in which they campaign. Table 5 below summarises these
findings.
Table 5: Summary of the relation of organisational structures and functions to campaigning
Key Issues
Structures Organisational Size
Larger organisational size may be associated with increased campaign scope and domain, the ability to develop a brand identity, and
increased organisational stability. However, it may also make an organisation slower moving and more cautious, and create problems of internal coordination and may also make it more difficult to
communicate a clear, core organisational message.
Organisational Location
More centralised (typically London based) organisational location may restrict connection with national membership. Organisational location may also affect ability to participate in interorganisational networks.
Human Resources
Organisations rely upon three important sorts of human resources – organisational staff, organisational supporters, and (in some cases) service users.
Organisational staff are a crucial resource, embodying an organisation’s
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core expertise. A campaign supporter base can be useful in order to have a body of people to call upon when an organisation wishes to take an action forward. Organisations are recognising that the use of New Media may assist with building such an active membership.
Service users can provide evidence of key policy issues (see below).
Organisational Profile
A well developed brand may facilitate relationship building between campaign groups and their audiences. However, developing the desired brand identity can be difficult- even when an organisation is well known it may be difficult to shake outdated preconceptions of their activities; also, a strong service providing brand does not necessarily transfer easily into a strong campaigning brand.
Functions
Core
organisational mandate
Core organisational mandates are crucial determinants of
organisational campaigning. The organisation’s core purpose not only determines what the organisation campaigns on, but whether they campaign at all. In some circumstances organisations may campaign on issues with little chance of immediate impact because they are
important issues within the organisation’s core purposes.
Single/multiple issue
campaigning
Multiple issue campaigning enhances the potential scope of
campaigning, enabling an organisation to maintain a presence within a range of policy areas. However, organisations with a broad issue focus, may find it difficult to communicate a core organisational message to their audience. Where the organisation is working on a broad range of issue areas, individual campaigns may also struggle to retain
organisational focus.
Service Provision
A service provision function can be significant to TSO campaigning, because service provision help reveal emerging policy issues, and evidence from service providers may help increase the effectiveness of campaigning. The involvement of service users in campaigning may also be a campaign goal in its own right.
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Organisations may be able to create positive interrelations between their campaigning and their fundraising functions - with donors potentially willing to be involved with campaigning, and campaigning boosting the public profile of an organisation so as to develop funding streams.
Overall, it can be concluded that there are a wide range of both structural and functional factors which affect campaigning. To some degree, organisational functions are rigid, giving limited flexibility to change the organisational purpose to improve campaign effectiveness (for instance, it was seen how some respondents noted that campaign issues were chosen on the basis of their importance within the organisation’s mandate rather than because of the likelihood of success.) However, organisations may have more freedom to adapt their structure to better fulfil their organisational aims. Although, because of cost/benefit trade-offs, it is not possible to typify an idealised organisational structure for campaigning on child poverty, it is notable that many organisations
appeared to:
wish to have more financial resources, to increase the scope and/or domain of campaigning
wish to have a presence both centrally (normally in London) but also be able to retain good channels of communication to localities nationally
believe that service provision provides important evidence which can support campaign work
believe that development of a supporter network can help with campaign actions
Some opportunities, in particular the building of supporter networks, appear desirable, but have not yet been fully developed by many organisations in the sector. There may be opportunities for organisations to develop further in this area.
From a resource dependence perspective, organisational structures provide the core resources (such as money, organisational profile and human resources) which
organisations depend upon for their survival and the successful fulfilment of their organisational objectives. Whilst they are not resources themselves, organisational
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functions determine the way in which resources are used, since the purposes the organisation serves affect the resources necessary to fulfil those functions. In the following three chapters, it will be seen in more detail how organisational resources may be exchanged for other resources which organisations require but do not possess (their resource dependencies). Through the course of these chapters and the conclusion, it will also be seen how the value of organisational resources varies depending on whether they undertake insider or outsider campaigning strategies.
In some cases, organisational resources are not exchanged, but may improve the
likelihood of successful resource exchanges taking place. For example, an organisation’s profile may help it to exchange evidence for influence with policymakers, with their profile acting as an assurance of the quality of their work. This work has identified these resources as ‘resource exchange catalysts’. These catalysts will also be further explored in the course of the following three chapters and the conclusion.
This chapter has focussed on the structure and function of individual organisations.
However, organisations also inter-structure their operations with other organisations working within the same policy area, in order to improve their organisational resources and the efficiency with which they can use them to influence policy. Such collaborative working is the subject of the following chapter.
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