Marketing Plan for Carter Center PADM 7040 Nonprofit Management Dr. Jerry Merwin

Marketing Planfor

Carter Center

PADM 7040Nonprofit Management

Dr. Jerry Merwin

Janice ReavesValdosta State University

October 19, 2005

Purpose

This marketing plan is designed to help the Carter Center adopt successful marketing strategies. It will detail how the Carter Center and its staff can reach out to key audiences to build awareness, support and hope for the Center’s efforts to wage peace, fight diseases, and build hope by both engaging with those at the highest levels of government and side by side with poor and often forgotten people.

Mission of the Carter Center

“At this point, the Carter Center is a well defined nonprofit organization. Its mission statement says, “The Carter Center is guided by a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering; it seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health.” http://www.cartercenter.org/aboutus/aboutus.htm

Seven Strategies for Success

Focus the Vision Brand the Nonprofit Create Information-Rich

Environments Phase in High-Profile Public Outreach Target Special Audience Listen Recruit Volunteers

1. Focus the VisionThe foundation of a strong marketing

plan is a clear definition of the product, its features and its benefits. If a product is too fuzzily defined, it’s impossible to position, package and present it effectively to its target audience.

Focus the Vision The Carter Center is an internationally

known nonprofit organization that is respected around the world.

Its health programs have impacted the lives of many children and adults who weren’t receiving medical care for diseases that cures have long been discovered.

Focus the Vision Its peace programs have played a key

role in bringing democracy to countries plagued by violence and corruption.

Carter has often said that the Center’s work should always be to supplement what other organizations are doing inadequately, or not doing at all.

Focus the Vision In March of this year Carter and his wife

announced they were stepping down as chair and vice chair of the Carter Center's board of trustees. Now is a critical time for the Center to Focus on the Vision of the Carter Center to ensure that the vision lives on through continued work with other countries, the poor, and the forgotten people that the Center is known for assisting.

GOALS2. Brand The Carter

Center

The Carter Center has one of the best brands that any nonprofit could have. It’s branded by the name of the 39th President of the United States.

At issue however, is President Carter’s work as a great humanitarian and most people know him 1st as a former president, 2nd as a tireless supporter of Habitat for Humanity, and 3rd as founder of the Carter Center.

Brand the Carter Center The Carter Center uses the following

logo as its brand

The brand should be changed to incorporate a picture of the president & a tag line should be added that says,”

“Creating a world in which every man, woman, and child has the opportunity to enjoy good health and live in peace.”

http://www.cartercenter.org/aboutus/aboutus.htm

Brand the Carter Center

Because President Carter is not interested in self promotion, it may take some convincing him to use his picture. However, the “Carter Center” name and logo is a weakness in that it doesn’t immediately say anything to an audience when it hears the name. The logo definitely does not identify with the Center. This lack of immediate connotation or association means the Center will have to work hard to define it in the public mind.

Brand the Carter CenterAs mentioned earlier, when Habitat for

Humanity is mentioned, Carter is immediately associated with the nonprofit organization. He has no

vested interested (other than helping poor people) in the nonprofit, he is

simply a volunteer.In a sample poll taken, 30 people were

asked if they knew what the Carter Center was, all 30 “assumed” it has

something to do with the President, but weren’t sure of its function. None

identified the logo.

3. Create Information Rich Environment

Building Membership/Donations In order to build membership at the Carter

Center, the environment must be information rich. This environment will: Spread Information by creating a complete “in-store”

Carter Center communications system that provides information about its programs. This package would be multimedia, including brochures, booklets, posters, videos and so on. The key to this system’s success would be to establish a consistent look among all its elements, thus avoiding the confusing hodgepodge of formats, colors, and other elements.

Create Information Rich Environment

Create a resource center that is available in several languages. This include videos, web-sites and staff members that can accommodate any language. Currently, the Web site is geared toward English speaking people only. Since the Carter Center is an Internationally known nonprofit, it makes sense to be inclusive and have no language barriers.


Building Membership

The Ambassadors Circle membership stands at 2,300. These donor make unrestricted donations of $1000 or more

Source Carter Center


Building Membership The Legacy Circle membership is at 300.

Persons who make planned gifts, charitable annuities, charitable trusts, will provisions, and other deferred gifts to The Carter Center are eligible to join the Legacy Circle .

To increase membership, the Carter Center should initiate a “Friend through a Friend” membership drive. Legacy Circle and Ambassador Circle members will be asked to bring one friend to the next member’s meeting to learn more about the Center. This will encourage those people to become a member of one of the Circles.

4. High- Profile Public Outreach

The Three “A”s of Effective Outreach

Awareness Attitude Action

High- Profile Public Outreach

AwarenessThe Carter Center has worked to improve

the lives of people in 65 countries. It should seek extensive brand awareness among the other countries in the United Nations. If the campaign is successful, a large majority of the UN should recognize the Carter Center brand. This kind of extensive awareness is not easy to achieve. It will require repeated exposure of the brand over a significant time.


AttitudeA step beyond ensuring that people

are aware of the Carter Center and its programs is to affect their attitudes toward it, that is, their knowledge and perception of it. This can be done by:


Deeply informing the public about the Carter Center through a mass media campaign,

The object of this is to increase the public’s understanding of the Center and what it does all over the world. The Carter Center should be seen as its leader is, a great humanitarian.

Simply increasing the average person’s knowledge of the Center would produce worthwhile results at this stage of public outreach.


ActionThe ultimate goal of any outreach marketing

campaign is to prompt action. This could mean getting potential donors and volunteers to:

Visit the Center’s web-site or Take a tour of the Carter CenterIn doing outreach, many nonprofits organizations fail

to include a clear “call to action.” They assume that by providing information, audiences will understand what to do. The final step in good marketing is to unequivocally ask for what you want. In this case the Carter Center wants more members, more donations, & world wide recognition, so it can help more people.

5. Target Special Audiences

Competition & EnvironmentWhile the Carter Center does not duplicate

the effective efforts of others, it is in competition with organizations such as CARE (Cooperative for Assistance Relieve Everywhere) to receive public donations to support its organization.

CARE works with poor communities around the world to find lasting solutions to poverty.


Competition & Environment160 thousand donors contributed more than $150 million in cash, pledges and in-kind gifts to the Carter Center in the fiscal

year 2004. These supporters included individuals, corporations, foundations, international organizations, the United

States and other governments.http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/2087.pdf


Competition & Environment In 2003-2004, 15 percent of the

Carter Center’s funding came from individuals and a whopping 64 percent came for corporations.

At the same time CARE received the same amount of funding from individuals.


In addition to producing materials, I recommend that the Carter Center

mount an outreach campaign to inform the community about the

Center. It also would be beneficial for the Center to seek endorsers as a tool to inform the public on its works, both nationally and internationally.

6. Listen While the marketing plan focuses on

sending the right message, it also focuses on listening as a fundamental communications strategy. Good communication is two-way. Questions, comments, and other forms of feedback from target audiences are essential to ensuring that the Center is doing a good job of meeting its mission.

6. Listen By listening to those who donate generously their

time and money, the Carter Center will build a comprehensive system of assessing satisfaction among those it serves and those who want to have a voice into assessing the job the Center is doing.

A variety of tool should be available to customers and donors, namely:

Comment cards at the Carter Center Customer feedback toll-free hotline Customer feedback option on Web site Postage paid survey that allow comments

Knowing what its customers are thinking is the most valuable kind of information a nonprofit can get.

7. Take Advantage of Technology

There are more high-tech tool available to us than ever before. With its work in International communities, it is just the right time for the Carter Center to explore the possibilities.

A great advantage of today’s technology is that information can be spread relatively inexpensively.

Information can be sent swiftly. And it puts the surfer in charge of viewing the

information s/he wants to view.


The Carter Center is doing an excellent job using the interactivity of technology to provide self-guided tours of the Center.

It is using the latest technologies as a fundamental communication strategy to inform other countries about its services.

Its Web site contains a video of the overview of Carter Center on its home page.


There is one thing that the Carter Center must be careful of when taking advantage of technology, however. It must be aware of what’s commonly called the “digital divide” between those who have access to technology and those who don’t.

Due to their economic status, many Carter Center customers may not have computers or Internet services.


In maximizing the use of technology, the Center should mitigate this problem in several ways. Don’t abandon traditional communications

channels such as print or video Do all it can to help customers get access to

technology and learn to use it. Maybe set up a cyber café in developing countries at local schools or libraries.

SUMMARY By committing to this comprehensive marketing

plan, the Carter Center will dramatically increase its presence in the U.S. and internationally. It will see higher percentages of volunteers and donors in the immediate future, and will be able to continue its “fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering; [as] it seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health.” http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/2087.pdf

Documents

Marketing Plan for Carter Center PADM 7040 Nonprofit Management Dr. Jerry Merwin