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British Heart Foundation is an organization that operates on charity terms and mostly relies on well-wishers for its operational funds. The foundation is one of the earliest charity organizations in the United Kingdom and has grown vastly to constitute of its own retail outlets and facilities for research in various parts of the United Kingdom. A few medical practitioners came together with the aim of starting up an organization to fight against heart killer diseases that were prevalent during the period. It funds education, awareness campaigns, and care with the aim of reducing as well as preventing heart diseases. Heart diseases have often resulted in a large number of deaths in the UK since most of them are hard to treat after they establish themselves in humans. The ones that are curable often turn out to be very expensive to treat, the fact that calls for assistance to vulnerable individuals on how to prevent their infection. In addition, the foundation funds research on various heart infections/diseases through its professionals who operate throughout the United Kingdom. BHF uses various strategies to harmonize people, mainly the wealthy ones, into making donations towards its activities and operations. The practice has been a success since people from UK list among the most generous individuals, with the nation ranking 8th position in the World Giving Index as of the year 2012.
Current Strategies and Challenges and Financial Implications
The charity sector, more so to the BHF, faces stiff challenges in the funding activities due to the weakening of the economic growth rate of the nation. Consequently, it implies that the foundation has to strategize its activities and income projects so that it does not go short of funds in its operation. Charity messages are harder to spread to the people and the giving power from well-wishers has reduced. The foundation uses awareness creation and education as strategies for its income gain since most people get to know about the various diseases and their severity in human beings. Besides, they engage a great amount of volunteer work, which forms most of its staff, especially, in its retail wing. It has been receiving help on advertisement from various institutions such as the London Press Exchange that ensure that it reaches a large number of people who later turn to be its customers, donors as well as volunteers. The BHF has ventured in Heart Support Groups in which it supports individuals who recover from heart diseases to come together, share their experiences, self-care, and take care of other patients.
The foundation runs more than 725 retail outlets that constitute a considerable percentage of its income and are mainly run by volunteers. It engages in retail outlets outside the medical sector, where it ventures in more than one hundred and fifty electrical and furniture shops throughout the United Kingdom.
The foundation uses its website, www.bhf.org.uk, as a contact between it and its patients, volunteers, professionals, and donors. The website is designed in an interactive way that helps the patients and other individuals learn more about heart diseases and about the organization. The foundation has established public affairs staff in various cities including Belfast, Edinburg, and Cardiff in order to interact effectively with government bodies in the Northern Irish Assemblies, Scotland, and Wales.
BHF has partnered with various institutions and bodies in massive fundraisers throughout the UK with the aim of accumulating funds for funding its projects and assisting patients. As from 2002, for example, it partnered with Legal & General Investment and Insurance Company for fundraising purposes. The companies have been sponsoring various programs and offering large amounts of donations towards the running of the foundation. The foundation strategists have worked to ensure that BHF has sealed corporate sponsorship with more than 30 companies that invest in different fields. It runs Heart Matters, a free service center that it established in 2008 that caters for people with heart conditions. It ensures that the members receive regular copies of Heart Matters magazine that advises people on healthy lifestyles and avoiding heart diseases. The strategy ensures that its scope of assistance rises and that it reaches more people in UK and abroad, as well. It educates young professionals on the field of heart diseases. The strategies have ensured that BHFs annual income continues to rise even with the continuous drop in its income from donors. BHF has turned out among the best performing charitable organizations in the UK, ranking in the top ten while there is no other heart organization within the first 125 foundations.
BHF has faced strategic challenges in the past few years in its income generation. The challenges mostly arise in donation and fundraising areas, which have slightly dropped every year since year 2010/2011. The challenge, however, is insignificant since its investment continues to rise and its income is on the rise too. BHF is the only heart foundation in the top 125 on the Charity Brand Index. It is a large institution, a fact that makes potential donors sway away from it with the notion that it already receives sufficient support. Therefore, they should donate to young institutions. The board that runs the foundation comprises both lay members and medical experts in its running that enhances its performance. The foundation has been lobbying with all potential donors in boosting its revenues and funds, aiming to meet its objectives. These objectives constitute informing the public fully on heart problems and effectively, enhancing self-care, offering medical assistance to patients, training medical practitioners, and raising awareness so as to reduce the extent of diseases.
Strategic Marketing Options
BHF has various marketing options that hugely prioritize on increasing the funds that it receives, the income from its investments, the corporate partnerships, fundraisings, and the number of volunteers that work with it. It has a directorate division that assists support staff in their working and boosting the technological systems in ensuring efficiency and high quality practices. It incorporates legacies, internal communications, and development and training resources within the firm to help integrate the internal and external environments and boost the relationship.
BHF has integrated programs in which it supplies magazine and newsletters that ensure that it increases its audience and communication. The magazines and newsletters play a crucial role in boosting the knowledge those suffering from heart problems and make them more confident in managing themselves, as well. It has already distributed more than 3.6 million resources in forms of DVDs, lifestyle booklets, and books on heart conditions. Besides, it provides support to more than 800 professionals in the healthcare sector, and they, in turn, have helped it indirectly by looking after more than 150,000 patients annually. The foundation has ensured that it closely works with the government in ensuring it gets the necessary support and consideration whenever appropriate. BHF strategists have ensured that it works vigorously towards an event whenever a situation arises. The Sun newspaper, for example, helped it in collecting over 100,000 signatures and submitted them to the prime minister in a campaign to obtain emergency life support and savers.
Online marketing is part of the marketing strategies that have seen the foundation through in its operations. It advertises through various online sources including the social media. In YouTube, for example, one of its TV adverts has received over 2.9 million views. A video on twitter also received more than 100,000 shares in a period of twenty-four hours. In addition, it has established public affairs staff in various cities including Belfast, Edinburg, and Cardiff so as to effectively interact with government bodies in the Northern Irish Assemblies, Scotland, and Wales. These ensure that communication with the public is always at its best and they act as a link between the devolution governments and the organization, as well.
Key Issues Facing the Charity Sector and Strategic Uncertainty
The charity sector has been on the rise in UK, and as of 2012, it employed 2.7% of the total paid workforce in UK. There have been uncertainties in the mode of working in the sector, however, the fact that has led to fluctuations in the sector operations. In 2011, for example, as many as eight employees lost their jobs per hour from the charity sector. The number of employees to the sector, however, rose drastically by 69,000 in the year 2012. These fluctuations and uncertainties have greatly affected the sector in terms of both employee security and donors efficiency, which will vary with the way that the foundations conduct their activities and their relationship with the public. The highest numbers of employees are in cities and large organizations that least depends on voluntary workers.
Donations from the public in the UK have declined in the past few years. In 2012, for example, donations fell to 9.3 billion pounds from 11 billion in the previous year. The average monthly donation from individuals also fell from 11 pounds to 10 pounds, a fact that indicates a negative projection in funds to the foundations. The total expenditure from the organizations has risen continuously in the recent past, and the foundations have to evaluate alternative sources of income to complement that received from donors and well-wishers.
Besides, the foundations face political challenges such as the governments commitment to incorporate the Big Society plan that greatly affects it due to the withdrawal of the government from its obligations. The government has huge debts that make it work on a way to reduce its expenditure in a move to cut the debts. The move has led to the slicing of its budget on charity organizations, and thus, their income has substantially suffered in the recent past. Charity organizations have ventured hugely in charity shops in the recent past. The extensive investment in them has been met with resistance in some areas as well as reduction in revenues in areas where two or more shops operate on the same commodities.
The Relevance and Application of Customer Relationship Management
The foundation has more than twenty four thousand employees with over two thousand and seven hundred working across its retail division. Most of the workers in the foundation operate under volunteering basis and have helped the foundation much in its causes. BHF has ensured that it reaches the citizens effectively in both its advertisements and service delivery. The mass of the workforce has helped it improve its efficiency within the charity sector in that it does not solely depend on donations, but generates about a quarter of its expenditure. The charity sectors donations in recent years have been on the fall due to the rise in living standards and the global economic crisis, which has prompted various charity organizations to venture in other fields as a way of boosting its revenues. The number of patients has also been on the rise; a fact that makes the foundation increase its expenditure on their treatment. The volunteering workforce constitutes of caretakers especially in Heart Matters centers who take care and educate the patients as well as other vulnerable individuals.