Relationship Marketing and Communication as a Driver of Fundraising Loyalty and Success in Non-Profit Organizations: A Theoretical Perspective

Introduction

Competitiveness assumes as a growing phenomenon and quality and innovation are a priority in the business world. Consequently, organizations express the need to create mechanisms capable of providing added value to consumers and occupying a better position in their minds. It is in this perspective that relationship marketing emerges as a strategy of loyalty and creation of strong links between organizations and their consumers. At first, marketing was seen only as a tool to sell a product and the strategies used were mainly above the line, based on massification (Kotler, 1999). The changes brought by globalization and opening up markets on a global scale, not only increased demand, but also boosted supply growth. People now have a wider range of options to choose from when buying a service or product, that contradicts the idea that the foundation of marketing is simply selling to a mass audience. Therefore, at the end of the 1950s, the concept of market segmentation emerged, becoming a priority in the planning of the marketing strategies of organizations. In this context, the below the line strategies are adopted, which promote a more targeted and integrated communication with the target audiences. The appearance of the concept of relationship marketing is proof that the scientific researchers of marketing is attentive to all these developments, having relationship marketing come to fill an existing gap in marketing and giving it a more humane character (Marques, 2014).

People are no longer only concerned with monetary issues, becoming more demanding and valuing more the emotional essence of the brands and of the organizations with whom they are in contact. The search for emotion, social experiences, affective bonds and interpersonal relationships has also resulted in the significant growth of relevance given to the third sector of society, composed of non-profit organizations that do not intend to conceive profit, but also cannot generate injury, whence the importance of fundraising (Jorge, 2017). Finally, the chapter will be developed using a qualitative methodology, through in-depth interviews (structured and semi-structured) to a non-profit organization and three her partners. This chapter focuses on relationship marketing, communication and fundraising (e.g., a Portuguese context). The authors also consider some implications for management, as well as give suggestions for future lines of research.