ETHICAL ISSUES IN CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS OF NOT FOR PROFIT ORGANISATIONS

Philanthropy Journal June 1995

As Government funding for the Not for Profit, or Charitable, sector has decreased, organisations have sought to raise money from an increasing variety of sources to continue their work. One area which has been targeted is the corporate sector and charitable organisations have been forced to become more commercially orientated to communicate effectively with this sector.

In this environment, charitable organisations have begun to target not only a corporation’s philanthropic budget but also their marketing budget. These approaches to corporations from the charitable sector have included such proposals as ‘Cause related or Public Purpose’ marketing campaigns (eg ‘Help Pal train Guide Dogs’), product endorsements (eg the Australian Heart Foundation ‘healthy product’ endorsement) and organisation or event sponsorships (eg Westpac with ‘Clean Up Australia).

This shift towards a more commercial orientation for charitable organisations has been encouraged by the recent Industry Commission enqu…