Public relations, marketing and fundraising in Canadian nonprofits: Who is better at relationship?

Abstract

The nonprofit landscape in Canada is extremely competitive and organizations looking to be successful for the long term will need the ability to build effective relationships with their key audiences. Over the last 30 years, the quality of organizational-public relationships (OPR) has been measured by a number of public relations scholars but it was Hon and Grunig (1999) who identified a number of indicators, including trust, commitment and control mutuality. Furthermore, scholarly literature shows there is also the potential for encroachment of public relations by other functions such as fundraising and marketing, as financial sustainability remains a great concern for nonprofits. This study examines public relations, marketing and fundraising structures in the human services nonprofit subsector in Canada against OPR indicators to explore whether there is a relationship between structure and engagement effectiveness. The researcher deployed a nationwide survey reaching 115 public relations, marketing and fundraising professionals, conducted in-depth interviews with 11 CEOs and senior leaders of nonprofit organizations and analyzed six of their corresponding organization charts in a content analysis. The research shows that generally the organizations in this subsector enjoy high levels of trust and commitment from their audiences, but control mutuality is an area of weakness. The researcher also found that encroachment of the public relations function was not occurring to a great extent. This study raises possibilities for future research of OPRs and other nonprofit subsectors as well as research that examines the relationship between organizational size and engagement effectiveness.