Skip to main content

Managing reputation for ‘good works’ while undertaking commercial activities - communications best practice guidelines for charities.

Watson, T. and White, A. M., 2010. Managing reputation for ‘good works’ while undertaking commercial activities - communications best practice guidelines for charities. PRism, 7 (2).

This is the latest version of this eprint.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF (Word to PDF conversion (via antiword) conversion from application/msword to application/pdf)
Watson_&_White_2010_-_Managing_reputation_for_good_works_-_with_diagrams_(PRism).pdf

69kB

Official URL: http://www.prismjournal.org/

Abstract

Charities and not-for-profit organisations have traditionally eschewed commercial operations in favour of direct fund-raising from supporters. Competitive pressures, however, are driving charities to take on ‘dual citizenship’ (Goodall 2000) through activity in both profit (commercial) and nonprofit (voluntary) sectors. There has been little scholarly attention or professional focus on the impact that commercial trading by charities has on relations with key stakeholders, such as supporters, and upon the reputation of the community-focused organisations. This paper reports a case study of a UK charity and explores supporters’ perceptions of the impact of commercial trading upon the organisation’s reputation as well as their relationship and level of engagement with the organisation. It found that donors are overwhelmingly in support of commercial activities, as long as these are aligned with the charity’s values. The study, however, also found that commercial activities should not deflect the charity from its perceived and announced mission.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:1448-4404
Uncontrolled Keywords:Charities, not-for-profit organisations public relations, reputation
Group:Faculty of Media & Communication
ID Code:14854
Deposited By: Prof Tom Watson LEFT
Deposited On:27 May 2010 18:23
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 13:32

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -