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5. Marketing and Networking

Publicity is vital for every community and voluntary organisation as without publicity, an organisation cannot recruit

members, raise funds or inform people of its aims and objectives. Good publicity helps to project the best possible image to the public and every member of the organisation can help with this task.

Experience and research have shown that direct, individual publicity is likely to be more successful, but good publicity in any form will help to communication information to others, enable it to circulate and penetrate, attract new members, and so develop and strengthen the organisation.

A strategic approach

Before putting communication materials into place, it is vital to ask three questions:

Who? Identify the ‘target group’ (or groups). List everyone it is wanted/hoped/necessary to interest – and then choose and design the materials accordingly;
What? Be clear what needs to be communicated to these people and what it is hoped they will do in response (come to an event, spend money, approve resolutions … be as explicit as possible);
How? Think about how the target group may best be approached. Where or how do they spend their time (libraries, churches, mosques, watching television)? What papers or magazines do they read? What is their age-range? Will they be attracted by the presence of a particular personality at an event?

Creating your image

Reputations and fortunes are made – and as easily destroyed – by careful or careless presentation.

Be realistic – recognise your competitors and do not underestimate them (you could try to establish a co-operative working relationship)
Use multiple promotion methods – don’t forget friends, funders, members and trustees. Allocate realistic budgets for advertisements, flyers, conferences, website development etc.
Use national debates – have a say on relevant national policy formulation. Lobby your MPs and other political representatives
Importance of design – good-looking publicity with a consistent “house-style” is hugely valuable but hard to achieve. Develop a good design brief

Note on copyright and other legal concerns

A crucial rule in the development of publicity material is not to use copyright material without the permission of the copyright holder. This applies to pictures and use of recorded music and sounds as well as to written material. You can find out more about this in our Activities and Trading guide. In addition, The Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the distribution of material intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.

Developing and maintaining networks

Voluntary and community groups are often linked through some kind of network. Their main purposes are to share information and ideas and to give each other mutual support. A network may be a neighbourhood-wide set of informal links and conversations. It may bring together people and groups with a particular interest across a whole town. There are county-wide, regional and national networks – and today there is that vastest of networks ever developed, the world wide-web. You can read up on our ‘Computers and the Internet’ guidance in our Managing your Organisation guide. It introduces the possible uses of computers for those organisations which do not have them, and explains some of the current uses of computers as a networking tool.

While informality is of the essence of network relationships, the most effective networks usually embody some level of organisation. There may be a mailing list, or at least a telephone contact list and someone in the organisation will usually perform some e kind of management role.

Working in partnership

There is a wide range of different forms of partnership that have been established for different purposes and on different scales. Central government funding régimes have increasingly required bidders to form partnership links. The notion of partnership also fits in with an increasing desire for public influence in the design and provision of local services, and there is a growing perception that partnerships between organisations in the different sectors can be an efficient approach to meeting social and economic needs.

One common form of partnership aims at creating and then managing finite projects that will achieve the goals on which the partners have agreed to collaborate.

Partners -

Agree a method of delivering the project;
May create a joint agency that controls the resources used to deliver the projects; or
May agree that each partner will deliver separate parts of the programme;
Such a partnership may well be time-limited by the funds available or by the nature of the task envisaged.

Among the roles which community and voluntary groups may perform within a partnership, there is not only the role of a formal partner within an initiative, but also roles such as those of consultant, delivery agent, beneficiary or simply ‘informed supporter’. These roles ‘offer different rewards and demand different levels of commitment …, and before opting for the most senior levels of representation groups should work out what benefits they seek from the relationship and what kind of contribution they are prepared to make’.

Some partnership arrangements may involve a community organisation entering into a contractual relationship with a local authority for the delivery of a specified service. To find out more about entering contracts, read our Activities and Trading guide.

For more information

To find out more about marketing and networking select the links below to download our set of publications.

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