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Resource Attraction and Marketing by Associations
Attraction and management of money (donations and earned), people, plant, technology, and reputation as resources are keys for nonprofit organizations (NPOs), including membership associations (MAs). This chapter reviews resource attraction from a marketing theory perspective. While traditional transaction marketing is often dominant, we argue that relationships and relationship marketing are at the heart of association resource attraction processes, considering what the association can produce or provide and member-beneficiary capacities. Resource attraction and maintenance are challenging, given competition for resources among associations. Engaging various relational stakeholders is key to success. Most attention is given to paid-staff associations, but we also discuss all-volunteer associations. While larger associations are likely to concentrate on financial resource attraction, smaller ones tend to build more successfully on volunteer members as their key resources.