World Wide Fund for Nature (Wwf)

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This project paper was assigned to our group by our beloved lecturer of Principles of Marketing, Sir Shamsul Izwan Saharani. The topic assigned is the Marketing in Not-For-Profit Organizations and the organization that our group chose is World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia). Our group had conducted a research through internet and latest annual report for information on the marketing strategies used by WWF-Malaysia. Furthermore, an interview with representative from WWF-Malaysia, Mr. Brandon Liu was conducted to find out more details and information about the not-for-profit organization and to have more understanding about it.

The findings were used as resource to complete this project paper report. The accuracy of information is important to expose and explain to the undergraduates of taking the subject Principles of Marketing on the way of marketing for not-for-profit organization and how they can survive in the business industry. In short, a lot of new knowledge was gained from the method of marketing by not-for-profit organization, which is different from other corporate companies including the government agencies.

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This report is done with the hope that the completion of this project paper can benefits other undergraduates by widen their knowledge. Last but not least, we would like to thank our group members who are willing to give their full support, co-operation and commitment throughout the process of completing this project paper.

Next, we would like to extend our appreciation and gratitude to our beloved tutor, Sir Shamsul Izwan Saharani for much of his help and support in assisting us in preparing this project paper. Not to forget, Mr. Brandon Liu, the Communications Unit Manager of WWF-Malaysia for his time and co-operation in responding to our interview.

2.0 BACKGROUND HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

History

World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia) was established as a national conservation trust on 13 January 1972. According to official website of WWF-Malaysia, the organization began as a humble two person-organisation. However, today, WWF-Malaysia has around 180 employees working at the offices from Langkawi to Sabah. The organization is also known as Tabung Alam Malaysia, as they are governed by a Board of Trustees. The early work of WWF-Malaysia was focused on scientific research of wildlife and important natural habitats. This work later expanded to the management of protected areas.

Background

WWF-Malaysia is a Malaysian organisation affiliated with WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), the international conservation organisation which founded in 1961 in the small town of Morges, Switzerland. WWF is a global network in more than 100 countries, including Malaysia (the 17th WWF organisation) and has more than 5 million supporters worldwide. WWF is now one of the most experienced environmental organisations in the world.

The headquarters of WWF-Malaysia is in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, and programme offices in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and Kuching, Sarawak as well as site offices in Fraser’s Hill, Langkawi, Malacca, Jeli and Stong in Kelantan, Ma’ Daerah and Setiu in Terengganu. Today, WWF-Malaysia’s work covers the broader issues of the natural environment, incorporating such aspects as policy work, environmental education, public awareness and campaigns. WWF-Malaysia currently runs more than 75 projects, including:

* Scientific field research
* Policy work with the government
* Environment education
* Public awareness programme
* Working with local communities to improve livelihoods and protect the environment
* Training and supporting other conservation organisations in Malaysia

Mission Statement and Guiding Principles

“For the Trustees, staff and supporters of WWF in Malaysia and the rest of the world, conservation is not just a job; it is a mission to save the planet.”

Mission Statement

WWF's Mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by: conserving the world’s biological diversity ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption

Guiding Principles

As part of the WWF Network, WWF-Malaysia’s activities are guided by the following principles: be global, independent, multicultural and non party political use the best available scientific information to address issues and critically evaluate all its endeavours seek dialogue and avoid unnecessary confrontation

build concrete conservation solutions through a combination of field based projects, policy initiatives, capacity building and education work involve local communities and indigenous peoples in the planning and execution of its field programmes, respecting their cultural as well as economic needs strive to build partnerships with other organisations, governments, business and local communities to enhance WWF’s effectiveness run its operations in a cost effective manner and apply donors’ funds according to the highest standards of accountability “The battles we fight are not in the trenches but at conferences, forums, on the streets and out in the field. Facing up to charging elephants or enduring long journeys just to get to the project site are part of the job.”

3.0 ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE

4.0 CURRENT MARKETING ISSUES

4.1 Product

A product can be defined as anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. Products include more than just tangible goods. Services are a form of product that consists of activities, benefits or satisfactions offered for sale that are essentially intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything. However, WWF-Malaysia’s product is intangible goods, it is project and service that are provided to their save environmental purpose. WWF-Malaysia is a national conservation trust that currently runs more than 75 projects covering a diverse range of environmental protection and nature conservation work in Malaysia.

Since 1972, WWF-Malaysia has worked on important conservation projects, from saving endangered species such as tigers and turtles, to protecting our highland forests, rivers and seas. WWF-Malaysia’s nature conservation effort include The Borneo Species Programme, The Environmental Education Programme, The Kinabatangan – Corridor of Life Programme, The Peninsular Malaysia Forests Programme, The Peninsular Malaysia Seas Programme, The Policy Programme, The Global Forest and Trade Network, The Heart of Borneo Programme. Issues they work on species, forests, freshwater, marine, environmental education, and policy.

Species

Though WWF-Malaysia does not work exclusively on species-focused projects, these do represent a major component of our work. With such projects taking place throughout Malaysia (from the Northern forests of Peninsular Malaysia to the coastal waters of the South China Sea and over to the valleys of Sabah) they work towards the protection and management of six different species; the tiger, Borneon Pygmy elephant, Sumatran rhinoceros and orang-utan in the forests and both the hawksbill and the green turtles in the seas and on the beaches.

Within the WWF network, all of these species are considered to be “flagships” – that is, as ambassadors for conservation in Malaysia. WWF-Malaysia works together with TRAFFIC-SEA and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks to try and combat a secret army of poachers working in Malaysia.

Conservation efforts are needed for threatened species whose survival cannot be guaranteed by conserving their habitat alone. The conservation effort includes The Borneo Species Programme which aims to conserve the critically endangered Sumatran rhino, the iconic orang-utan and the Bornean pygmy elephant.

Forests

Human are using nearly 30% more natural resources than the Earth can replenish and our activities are drastically changing the planet’s climate. As a result the life support system is starting to break down. Millions of people are already feeling the consequences. And things will get much worse if we keep going the same way.WWF has been involved in conservation of forests since its launch 50 years ago. Today work is focused on preserving remaining forests and working in partnership to promote sustainable forestry. WWF-Malaysia’s Forest for Life Programme aims to increase the coverage of forest protected areas, improve the management of production forests for the supply of sustainable timber, and restore degraded areas especially where there is need to maintain critical forest linkages.

There are several conservation efforts include The Peninsular Malaysia Forests Programme, The Kinabatangan – Corridor of Life Programme, The Global Forest and Trade Network and The Heart of Borneo Programme. The Kinabatangan – Corridor of Life Programme aims to establish a forest corridor along both sides of the Kinabatangan River that connects isolated forest reserves, enabling wildlife, local communities and economic development to thrive and support each other there. Whereas, The Peninsular Malaysia Forests Programme aims to protect the natural resources within a contiguous forested area to provide environmental, social and economic benefits to the nation.

This encompasses sustainable forestry, protected area management and tiger conservation efforts. WWF-Malaysia also participates in the following international conservation programmes.

The Global Forest and Trade Network is a worldwide partnership between forest and trade companies committed to eliminate illegal logging as well as improve the management of threatened and valuable forests. The Heart of Borneo Programme is a conservation initiative involving Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia that encompasses 31% or 240,000 square kilometres of land in the centre of the island, creating an opportunity to conserve pristine tropical rainforests on a large scale.

Freshwater

Recognising this, WWF-Malaysia promotes the conservation, integrated management and sustainable use of freshwater ecosystems. To achieve this, WWF-Malaysia advocates for integrated policies and approaches, field projects, improving information database, and information dissemination to increase awareness. These are encapsulated within WWF- Malaysia’s Freshwater Programme comprising the following three areas:

1. Conserving river basins
2. Sustainable water use
3. Conserving freshwater habitats

Policy

WWF-Malaysia creates a program to promote the conservation; the program is The Policy Programme. The Policy Programme WWF-Malaysia advocates for effective environmental policy in the areas of land use, environmental legislation, sustainable conservation financing, institutional frameworks and environmental governance.

Marine

These warm tropical waters are also home to one of the world’s largest populations of endangered green sea turtles and other endangered marine species such as hawksbill turtles, dugongs, whale sharks, and humphead wrasse. The battles they fight are not in the trenches but at conferences, forums, on the streets and out in the field. Facing up to charging elephants or enduring long journeys just to get to the project site are part of the job.

WWF-Malaysia is working hard to help protect the country’s natural environment through several conservation programmes such as the Peninsular Malaysia Seas Programme. The Peninsular Malaysia Seas Programme aims to have, by the year 2020, sustainable fisheries as well as a healthy marine and coastal environment that supports local communities. This includes turtle conservation work in Melaka and Terengganu.

Environmental education

To protecting our highland forests, rivers and seas, WWF-Malaysia currently runs more than 75 projects including Environmental education. WWF-Malaysia uses Community education and awareness approaches in carrying out conservation efforts such as the environmental education programme that encourages society to participate in environmental conservation and encompasses WWF-Malaysia’s work towards developing an Environmental Education policy within the National Curriculum.

4.2 Price

Marketing mix consists of price, product, place and promotion. WWF-Malaysia is a non-profit organization, their main activity aren’t selling products or services. They are differing from the other profit based organizations which are using the marketing mix strategies to maximize their profit and customer equity by delivering high customer value and satisfaction. Conversely, WWF-Malaysia obtain fund from public to run their projects and activities towards environmental conservation. They have a lot of strategies and efforts to get and manage the fund. The marketing department are told about the projects, and the department have to raise the fund to make sure the projects can run on time.

When people donate their money to WWF, they can verify whether their donation being allocated in an appropriate pattern viewing the financial report, annual review and WWF’s website to know how WWF allocated their donation. The website stated clearly that how much they needed for the different projects and the amount that has been collected in current period. WWF provided credible, accountable and transparent financial report for the public. The annual review explained all the income and expenditure of the year. WWF-Malaysia gets their fund from public individuals and organizations. They set up the donation boxes at public places and opened certain accounts for the online donators.

They tell the public about their recent projects through the promotions and how much they needed for the projects on WWF-Malaysia’s website. For the corporation part, WWF-Malaysia has a “corporate relation team” to meet the corporate people face-to-face to persuade the corporations to donate some money to WWF-Malaysia. The corporate relation team will send the proposal about WWF-Malaysia yearly plan and projects to get the financial support from the organizations. Some companies donated money to WWF-Malaysia as their social community responsibilities.

WWF-Malaysia shows their appreciation towards the donors by listed out all the donors’ name in their annual review and newsletter and the amount donated. For corporation who donates a very huge amount, WWF-Malaysia offered them the opportunities to advertise their products in their newsletter and annual view.

WWF-Malaysia gets their income from donations from corporations, donations from Trusts & Foundations, donations / legacies from individuals, government/ aid agencies grants, WWF network grants, sale of goods/ services / royalties, promotions & events and others. Most of the network grants are contributed by WWF-Netherlands and WWF-Germany, both of these countries people are richer and willing to donate. As these countries don’t have much problem with their biodiversity, they give the fund to other networks such as WWF-Malaysia. The example of royalties is greeting cards royalties, some company want to use the WWF-Malaysia brand name and print it on the greeting cards to encourage higher sales and revenue, so WWF sells their royalties to the public as an extra income.

Total income: RM 30,960,276

WWF-Malaysia’s expenditure consists of conservation expenditure, cost of generating funds & awareness and operating expenditure. Projects expenditure included the salary of full time staff such as professional researchers; WWF-Malaysia hired them to facilitate WWF-Malaysia to make better and professional conservations. Meanwhile, cost of generating funds & awareness are those costs that involved in campaigns, advertisement fees, booths in shopping malls and colleges. Operating expenditures means office expenditure like electricity, rentals of offices, and so on. The following shows the percentage of different expenditures in WWF-Malaysia and allocations of funds under projects expenditure (until financial year of 2010):

WWF-Malaysia’s Expenditure:
-Conservation Expenditure77.3%
-Cost of Generating Funds & Awareness13.8%
-Operating Expenditure8.9%
Total ExpenditureRM28, 697,108
Total Conservation Expenditure RM 20,953, 321

4.3 Place

WWF-Malaysia based on scientific and economic analysis had incorporated their deep knowledge of global and local market forces that influence and challenge wild natural world. WWF Malaysia is transforming the common considerable forces that terrorize people and nature.

Corporations can work with WWF-Malaysia in many ways. Such as project sponsorship, event sponsorship and donation in kind. According to 2006 survey by the Nielsen Company, it shows that 88% of Malaysians who participate in this survey are agree to the importance for the corporations for being responsible to social and environment. Also it shows that 72% would switch to the product that is not at the same price or quality for a good cause such as WWF-Malaysia and it have been increased by 9% compare to the same survey undertaken in 2003. In addition, 85% agreed to the importance of supporting the environmental protection organizations like WWF-Malaysia by corporations and it shows 7% increase compare to 2003 survey.

Regarding to above survey, organizations like WWF-Malaysia public advices are so effective to the Malaysians consumer’s shopping decisions. As the result, WWF-Malaysia partnership can be a great idea for corporate marketing planning. By having WWF-Malaysia as partner corporations, they are not only practicing their responsibility to the nature, but also hitting the new customer requirements and it means satisfaction for current customers and targeting the new customers who care about environment.

WWF-Malaysia partners are leaders of various industries such as automotive, plantation, property developers and telecommunication. These strong partnerships are accelerating WWF-Malaysia’s projects to the great succeed. WWF-Malaysia’s work is not limited to Malaysia boarders only, it also participating in regional projects with the neighbour countries to protect the wild nature. In other word, WWF-Malaysia is the leader of Malaysia robust green market place.

WWF-Malaysia has been involved in so many projects since 1972 and almost more than 75 helpful projects toward protecting environment have been done by them. They employ over hundred-registered employees all across the country. This organization is part of the big family of global WWF, one of the world largest and most powerful international organizations around the world. WWF has nearly 5 million supporters and a global active in 100 countries.

WWF-Malaysia work include all over Malaysia. Beside their headquarters in Petaling Jaya Selangor, they also have program offices in Kota Kinabalu Sabah and Kuching Sarawak that is pointed to support the Borneo projects. WWF-Malaysia also has project sites offices all over the nation. In 2007 and
2008, WWF Malaysia has been finished few projects such as Peninsular Malaysia Seas Programme, The Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion Programme Apex of the Coral Triangle Kinabatangan, Corridor of Life Programme, Peninsular Malaysia Forests Programme and Environmental Education Programme.

The Peninsular Malaysia Seas Programme aims to be available by the year 2020, which is a sustainable fisheries as well as a healthy marine and coastal environment that also supports local businesses. Turtle conservation work in Melaka and Terengganu is also included in this project. The long term succeed of any project is based on local community participation. In Terengganu, for the turtle awareness there were more than 1,200 participants attended the events organized by WWF-Malaysia.

Terengganu State Department of Fisheries and corporate sponsors were a local community concern group for turtle protection “Persatuan Khazanah Rakyat Ma’Daerah (MEKAR)” which was recognized by WWF-Malaysia. Moreover this successful hard work was to raise awareness of the consequence of turtle conservation. Another achievement is the 81% booming mark rate in the Ma’Daerah hatchery over the past years (hatch rate is considered successful at 70%).

The Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion Programme Apex of the Coral Triangle is based in the world’s epicentre of marine biodiversity. This project is a multi nation project between Malaysia, Philippines and also Indonesia. WWF-Malaysia works with WWF-Indonesia and WWF-Philippines at this juncture to conserve a marine ecoregion that remains a highly prolific, globally unique centre of biodiversity able to offer for local business requests.

In Kudat and Semporna, ecosystem-based administration of coastal fisheries is being implemented. The ground teams have surveyed around 100 villages to expand about into the socioeconomic profile of coastal communities, current resource use patterns, relationships that exist between resource users and resources, and their willingness to direct these marine resources. Rapid reef assessments of over 30 reefs were performed to determine baseline data of the health of the reefs and point future decision-making.

All activities were aimed at steering the people (including local community members and leaders, traditional and commercial fishermen, and government agencies such as Sabah Parks and Department of Fisheries Sabah) towards collaborative management of marine resources. This includes trainings on wildlife conservation enforcement and reef monitoring workshops to identify zones such as leisure zones and no fishing zones within the planned multiple-use Tun Mustapha Park in Kudat, and a Workshop Consequential in the Formation of a Vision for Semporna.

Heart of Borneo Programme is a forest restoration work in North Ulu Segama, Sabah within the Heart of Borneo and it boosted up when British retailer Marks & Spencer finance the project. Accumulation work there and decided to work with WWF-Malaysia for help to negotiate about palm oil and timber industries to make them responsible and sustainable practices, while ensuring that the British retailer’s own supply chains are sustainable.

When Adessium Foundation from Netherlands agreed the support for orang-utan conservation and also forest rehabilitation work in the state of Sabah at east Malaysia within the heart of Borneo for three years beginning in July 2008, the international scale and appeal of WWF conservation work was underline in 2007. The adessium foundation is one of many family foundations across Europe that is premium foundation that has a close relationship with other environment concern organization such as WWF. In addition, the family foundations are more common in United State of America and mentioned foundation is part of the new wave in Europe.

Peninsular Malaysia Forests Programme is another project by WWF Malaysia. WWF Malaysia following its close collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (NRE) in the preparation and administration of protected areas. WWF-Malaysia and NRE organized the “Master List of Protected Areas in Malaysia” workshop with support from DANIDA in April 2008. The workshop been significant as it is the first time an initiative has been made to collect an official list of any terrestrial and marine protect are in Malaysia. The main list of these protected areas to be released will be an elemental tool for conservation planning and administration.

WWF-Malaysia’s Gunung Stong State Park project in Kelantan organized more than 10 capacity building courses for local groups there during the last financial year, including basic entrepreneurship, basic guiding, bird watching and wilderness first aid. These courses will enhance local communities’ livelihoods by motivating their works in sustainable eco-tourism. 150 people from various groups have participated in these courses.

4.4 Promotion

From high up in the mountaintops to down low at the bottom of the sea, WWF-Malaysia is working hard to help protect the country’s natural environment through several conservation programmes. WWF-Malaysia focuses its conservation work on large-scale priority areas that encompass a broad range of wildlife and ecological systems. The ultimate goal is to achieve long-term and sustainable conservation impact in the country by conserving, restoring, and protecting a diversity of species, forests, marine, coastal, and freshwater environments.

For a living planet, for us, for our children and the generations to come as well as Marketing Department of WWF-Malaysia's main goal is to raise funds from individual donors, through limited merchandise sales as well as through corporations and events like ' Art for Nature ' that successfully raised RM 121, 407.80 in 2010. Furthermore, the target is not only to raise funds, but also wants to create and promote public awareness about the environment.

Based on WWF-Malaysia's 2010 Annual Review, the income mostly generated from donations or legacies from individuals and WWF Network Grants with 48.5% and 39.8% from the total income respectively, while the income generated from promotions and events is only 0.2%. This amount was slightly decreased compared to the year before. On the other hand, they managed to raise more funds from donations of individuals to cover the reduction amount of promotion and events income because they put more expenditure on generating funds and awareness. This helps WWF-Malaysia to develop conscious public about contribution of WWF-Malaysia.

There are several ways of how WWF-Malaysia developed conscious public about contribution of WWF-Malaysia. One of them is through media. Their supporters and volunteers helped them to distribute the printed flyers, pamphlets, direct marketing inserts in leading newspapers and information about WWF-Malaysia’s projects to let people know what WWF-Malaysia is doing. WWF-Malaysia also broadcasting the campaign on the television and radio about the projects they involved in for example, The Earth Hour Campaign. They also responsible to give information about WWF-Malaysia to public through the Internet which people can access to their official websites. They also have linked with other organizations’ websites which work together with them in certain projects.

For people who digital illiteracy or doesn’t have any Internet access at their home, they do not need the Internet access to know about WWF-Malaysia. Through on the ground events and educational booths in high traffic areas in urban centres and educational institutions helps WWF-Malaysia communicates face-to-face effectively with the public. For example, the educational booths will be set up in the mall or shopping centres which are crowded with people. WWF-Malaysia’s staffs will be there to give explanation in brief. For example, such as 'Malaysiaku Street Festival' programme which held at Bankung Row, Bukit Bandaraya. There is WWF-Malaysia's booth and visitors can come to learn more about WWF-Malaysia's conservation work.

In addition, WWF-Malaysia also works with student councils and university clubs in order to persuade and encourage them to become volunteers and supporters to help WWF-Malaysia raise environmental awareness among their peers. For example, WWF-Malaysia worked with students councils in several universities across Malaysia in the 'Egg=Life Campaign ' which they managed to get thousands of signatures as the symbol of students supporting the effort of saving the turtle eggs.

Moreover, WWF-Malaysia also continually sends the monthly e-newsletters and quarterly newsletters of Green Heart for the supporters all over Malaysia to inform them about the latest news of events and projects that have been done by WWF-Malaysia. With these e-newsletters and newsletters, supporters will also be informed about the upcoming events that may attract them to join and participate to become volunteers in such events.

Building good relations with other companies or government also important for WWF-Malaysia as they can give strong support for the conservation work that WWF-Malaysia doing. For instance, 'The Environmental Educational Programme'. This programme encourages society to participate in environmental conservation and encompasses WWF-Malaysia’s work towards developing an Environmental Education policy within the National Curriculum. When they work with Government, individuals, and corporations, they will have meetings and build partnerships. In future, they will cooperate and collaborate again in such events or projects. WWF-Malaysia also can receive some sponsorship or new media partner in order to evolve their projects.

WWF-Malaysia targets the market in every level of ages and every place they lived. But how they classified and persuaded them is different from each other. For example, WWF-Malaysia may ask colleges to support our signature campaign but does not ask students to support them with money. In urban areas, they reach out to professionals through direct marketing inserts in leading newspapers. In rural areas, they would reach out to supporters via on ground events such as a 'beach clean-up gotong-royong'. The corporation also can contribute by donation of money for the project expenditures or event sponsorship and work as a partner. The key thing is they know how to target the audience, what to ask from each audience is, and then customize their channel and content to optimize chances of getting them to respond positively to their needs.

While most corporations’ activities are affected by which products or services will generate the most profit, WWF-Malaysia’s objectives are to conserve our natural resources, so they undertake nature conservation work wherever the conservation need is most urgent, such as in high value conservation forests. The marketing strategy does not influence their activities; rather the marketing strategy is determined by what needs to be done for conservation. This shows that their activities and projects actually influenced on how the marketing strategy will be set up and planned in the future in order to gain public awareness regarding the environmental issues.

4.5 Challenges

Challenges that WWF-Malaysia encounters recently is the lack of awareness and interest among public. WWF-Malaysia is facing problem when trying to organize programmes to create awareness on the environmental problems due to human causes among public. The reaction from public are much unconcerned than expected.

For the generation before 20 centuries in Malaysia, they are less exposed to the idea of conservation to save the planet. Hence, the problems that the environment facing such as pollution and extinction of flora fauna are seem to be not important to them. They tempt to continue their daily activities and works even there are complaints claim that the works that they doing will produce pollution to the environment. For those people, income for family are more important than the welfare of the society because they never be taught about and exposed to the long term effects of the problems.

However, although the new generation is educated about the environmental issues, they seem to be not concern to the issues due to personal attitude such as selfishness, coldblooded, etc. Besides, they are also influenced by their elders that we discussed above. Some of them even give up on taking action because they think that the damage to the environment is too serious that no solution could be done to cure it.

The above challenge results in inadequate of man power in WWF-Malaysia because less people are willing to work for WWF-Malaysia. Due to their attitude to the issue, people think that the effort of WWF-Malaysia is useless and rejected to help. Moreover, since the organization is not-for-profit organization, some of the youth today who are materialistic refuse to work with WWF-Malaysia with the thought that they would not earn high income if thy chosen that job.

The challenges consequently lead to another challenge that is public lack of knowledge about WWF-Malaysia. This is because of the insufficient marketing strategies done due to inadequate man power. Furthermore, the public seldom do research and try to understand WWF-Malaysia due to the attitude of the public of being unconcerned.

In short, WWF-Malaysia mainly faces problems of the attitude of the public.

5.0 Conclusion

WWF-Malaysia has been involved in policy and advocacy work for over 40 years. We have adopted various approaches and effective partnerships to promote policies, plans, programmes, and legislation that integrate environmental concerns for sustainable development. This includes engaging with various government ministries and departments at the federal, state, and local levels. A search for information and interview was conducted to find out more details and information about the not-for-profit organization and to have more understanding about it.

A lot of new knowledge was gained from preparing this research on the methods of marketing of not-for-profit organization. One of the most important elements in environmental conservation is perhaps also one of the most overlooked one of all: Education. People have the power to either protect or destroy the environment, depending on how they choose to live their lives. These choices dictated by their level of awareness on their natural world, their knowledge on the impact they have on it and most importantly, their ability to actually do something about it.

The task of conserving the environment through education begins in the formative stages of our lives, which ultimately determines our attitude and behavior towards the environment and how these are eventually passed on to succeeding generations.

WWF-Malaysia employs a strategy of collaborative partnerships, consultations, and participation with government agencies, universities, other environmental NGOs, and specific community groups to be agents of conservation.

References

http://www.wwwf.org.my
Interviewed with Mr. Brandon Liu

Interview

Date: 17th December 2011
Time: 2.30pm – 4.30pm
Venue: WWF-Malaysia, Petaling Jaya
Person interviewed: Mr. Brandon Liu

Us: What is the main aspect of WWF’s Marketing Department?
Suan: WWF-Malaysia’s Marketing Dept raises funds from individual donors, through limited merchandise sales as well as through corporations and events like Art for Nature.

Us: How do WWF objectives and its marketing mix strategy affect its future decision?
Suan: While most corporations’ activities are affected by which products or services will generate the most profit, WWF-Malaysia’s objectives are to conserve our natural resources, so we undertake nature conservation work wherever the conservation need is most urgent, such as in high value conservation forests. The marketing strategy does not influence our activities; rather the marketing strategy is determined by what needs to be done for conservation.

Us: What is the major macro environmental factor that affects WWF marketing process?
Suan: Like all organisations, we are affected by income levels. When income levels drop due to economic recession, our donations drop too, with corporate giving being the most elastic.

Us: How you all come out with all the projects and how to achieve it outcome?
Suan: Our scientists and conservation experts will identify which areas need our most urgent attention and set conservation goals.

Us: How you all decide whether want do which campaign on particular worth?
Suan: Depending on the conservation need. For example, this year marine turtles needed our urgent attention as laws should be passed to ban the sale and consumption of turtle eggs.

Us: Different places need different approaches in handling the marketing strategies.
Suan: Can u describe in a brief how WWF-Malaysia faces this situation.
WWF-Malaysia’s team understands the Malaysian market well, and we also get to compare notes from marketers in different countries via the WWF global network. We are careful to customise our channels and our content according to the supporter audience, and what we would like to ask them to do: donate, sign a signature drive campaign or participate in an event etc. For example, we may ask colleges to support our signature campaign but we do not ask students to support us with money.

In urban areas, we reach out to professionals via New Media and through direct marketing inserts in leading newspapers. In rural areas, we would reach out to supporters via on-ground events such as a ‘beach clean-up gotong-royong’. The key thing is to know your target audience, what your ask to each audience is, and then customise your channel and content to optimise chances of getting them to respond positively to your ask.