Marketing in Chinese Foundations in Beijing, People’s Republic of China: status, challenges and areas of improvement

While non-profit organisations (NPOs) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including the Chinese Foundations have realised that marketing can increase competitiveness and help mobilise resources, many challenges exist that keep them from successfully implementing marketing strategies. This qualitative study identifies Chinese Foundations’ current level of understanding and practices in marketing, factors affecting these practices, key challenges they face in the implementation as well as areas for improvement. In attempting this, selected National Chinese Foundations in Beijing were interviewed. This research shows that most of the Chinese Foundations interviewed are doing marketing activities of some sort. Currently, their perception of marketing is associated to promotion and fundraising. Moreover, sixty per cent of the Chinese Foundations are organisation-centred and forty per cent are customer-centred. Like many NPOs, the Foundations face internal challenges such as limited capacity and lack of marketing strategies, and lack of knowledge of who the customers are. The Foundations also face external challenges that are related to funding competition and tax-free government policy. With respect to these challenges, the most important areas for improved marketing include organisational marketing training, improved networking, and market research. Results from this study add to the knowledge on marketing in Chinese Foundations and present potential benefits to a number of groups including the existing and future Chinese NPOs, the government agency in charge of the administration of the NPOS, as well as researchers in PRC and internationally. Future research should seek to understand marketing understanding and practices in other areas of PRC such as Hangzhou and Kunming, and other areas where Foundations are located. In addition, evaluation of the marketing strategies that could be generalised for NPOs in PRC is recommended for future research.