The Refugee Crisis, Non-Governmental Organizations and Marketing

This Master Thesis aims to examine the implementation of marketing by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) that operate in Greece and are attempting to tackle the recent refugee crisis. Ever since the late 18th century, Non-Governmental Organizations have been trying to deal with several issues from human suffering to saving the environment. As every other organization, NGO’s ought to market themselves in order to achieve their goals. However, how do they market the organization? On the one hand, marketing is essential to familiarize them with the public but on the other hand marketing is a concept intrinsically linked to forprofit organizations. This research explores the ways that NGO’s find successful to promote their efforts. Therefore, the main research question of this thesis is “How is marketing perceived and utilized by Non-Governmental Organizations in Greece?”. In order to answer the aforestated research question, ten in-depth interviews with employees of six NGO’s which operate in Greece and are involved with the refugee crisis, were conducted. Furthermore, a thematic analysis was performed on the data collected from the interviews. The findings indicated, that even though NGO’s do not like to be associated with marketing tools, they do resort to using promotion strategies, which include advertisements on television and printed press, as well as utilizing social media. Moreover, the data revealed that, even though NGO’s do not compete, the industry is a competitive one and non-profit organizations only cooperate, when it is towards a common target. However, all interviewees believed that in general, there is a negative public perception of NGO’s and it is an issue that renders their task challenging. This in turn could have an impact on their efforts and thus, render the use of marketing in NGO’s a subject for further research.