Non-profit corporations often confuse the needs of the corporation – positioning, marketing, publicity – with their advocacy mission.  Every corporation is committed to its own continuing existence.  It competes for money, resources and attention with similar corporations.  These objectives require marketing and branding.

But the advocacy goal – getting decision makers to do something – may be constrained, even harmed, by corporate marketing needs.

Too much of the communication strategy of advocates is driven by unexamined assumptions about the need for credit and recognition. One operating assumption is that getting media coverage is crucial to getting new and continued funding. But isolating and identifying the objective – raising money, for example – makes clear that the need for credit applies in this case only to a handful of funding decision makers, and so news coverage will not be the most effective medium.

Marketing and publicity can reinforce the dominant perception that political advocacy is conducted by branded and positioned organizations pursuing their special interest – getting something for members of their group, protecting their own jobs, or promoting their private agenda. This gives opponents the opening to characterize the debate as the special interests of the advocates versus the interests of the rest of us.