Special Session: Nonprofit and Nongovernmental Organization Marketing: Reflections in the Context of the Scottish Enlightenment: An Abstract

Abstract

This special session presents a group of research analyses related to the broad range of not-for-profit and nongovernmental organizations (NPOs and NGOs), which includes the arts/culture/ heritage, philanthropic/charitable, economic development, education, health, religion, social, sport, and sustainability sectors. NPOs and NGOs are challenged with establishing and maintaining relationships with the markets and stakeholders which provide their support and funding. To remain financially and operationally viable, they must leverage innovative ideas, strategic and tactical management / marketing tools, and best practices of sector leaders around the world to survive and thrive. Doing this requires thinking across disciplines and recognizing their historical evolutions and literature. Marketing owes significant debts to other fields beyond business (e.g. the humanities, economics, mathematics, and decision sciences), and this session examines NPO/NGO marketing through the lens of Scottish Enlightenment concepts (which have spread far beyond the U.K., throughout Europe, America, and to the rest of the world) and the relevance of its ideas in the worldwide environment in which NPO/NGO organizations exist. Research presentations which form the basis of this special session focus on the topics of: Market vs. Non-Market approaches – an examination of Nonprofit Marketing in the context of Adam Smith’s workThe importance of Internal Marketing of organizational continuity planning for nonprofit organizations, framed in Lord Kames’ idea of natural sociality and mutual responsibilityActs of peer support (e.g. volunteering) as a “route to enlightenment and interdependence”The desirability of supporting consumers in subsistence marketplaces, interpreted in the context of Adam Smith’s fellow-feeling as the thread that weaves the social fabric together The session panelists will also engage the audience on three broader questions: (1) What are the implications of this research for NPO/NGO organizations in general? (2) How does nonprofit research on these topics contribute to for-profit marketing and management (which is the reverse of the common question of what for-profit marketing has to contribute to nonprofit research and practice)? and (3) What additional relationships and implications can be drawn between these topics and the unique intellectual and practical contributions of the Scottish Enlightenment?